


If an Injury Is to Be Inflicted

by shealwaysreads (onereader)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Addiction, Anal Sex, Blood and Gore, Choking, Consensual Sex, Corpses, Dark Harry Potter, False Identity, Forced Captivity, Gambling, Government Conspiracy, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Intrigue, Kidnapping, Love Bites, M/M, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, Moral Ambiguity, Morally Grey Harry Potter, Murder, No actual animals fighting, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Police Brutality, Post-War, Powerful Harry, Rimming, Rough Sex, Scars, Sentient Magical House, Serious Injuries, Wizarding Politics (Harry Potter), fights to the death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:35:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 44,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26339608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onereader/pseuds/shealwaysreads
Summary: If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.Harry Potter disappeared a year after the Battle of Hogwarts, and with him went all hope for true change in magical Britain.Three years later, Draco indulges himself and attends his firstDog Fight—the infamous underground fights with no rules, no referee, and no points system bar blood on the floor. The game was simple: you win, or you die.A glint of green amidst the blood-red changes everything.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 153
Kudos: 863
Collections: H/D Hurt!Fest 2020





	1. Conquered Kingdoms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quicksilvermaid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quicksilvermaid/gifts).



> This story was written for the wonderful HD Hurt Fest for prompt 23.
> 
> Heaps of love, and general adoration are in order for my alpha-beta-cheerleader collective without which this fic (and me) would be far poorer ❤️
> 
> Please see end notes for tag details.

The Second Wizarding War of Great Britain had ended in the courtyard of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, its stone battlements crumbling and scorched, and its students battered and weary. Sixty years since Tom Riddle had first stepped through the doors of the castle and in magic, he had seen the vehicle for his hatred to blossom into endless vengeance against his own blood, and finally it was over. 

Lord Voldemort lay dead, his army decimated and fleeing, and Harry Potter stood amidst the drifting ash and the faltering sunrise. It was the dawn of a new day. A new beginning. At least, that’s what they thought. 

First came the funerals and burial rites, then the ceremonies of remembrance and monuments raised for those whose bodies would never be found; the endless weeping, the grieving, the agonising scope of loss clearer everyday as the salve of practicality wore away. Harry had only been to one funeral before those awful days: Dumbledore’s. But after the first five he attended in the week after the war was over, he knew the traditional recitations of remembrance and regret by heart. He had run out of tears entirely, he was wrung out and useless. His sorrow was too deep and too wide to traverse, or understand, or explain. There was no magic for that. He stared across the chasm of loss at the world, wondering if justice would bridge the gap. 

Harry thought that everything would move quickly, after (after the fighting, after the dying). He thought that the Aurors would sweep in, and pick up every Death Eater and every apologist who had turned their cheek and ignored their neighbours being dragged from their homes in the night. He thought that Shacklebolt would become Minister of Magic, and be measured but relentless in rooting out the rotten tendrils of Death Eater influence on the Ministry. He thought that people wanted change—wanted peace—wanted back everything that Voldemort had stolen.

But nothing moved fast. It took a year before the first Death Eater trial was held. _A year_. Endless months of the _Prophet_ running articles about ‘evidence gathering’ and ‘national stability’ and how ‘the Ministry must reform before true justice can be done’. Harry didn’t read them at first, not until Hermione’s quietly muttered annoyance turned into full blown rants over the dining table at Grimmauld Place. Not until she pointed out the key words and phrases that kept being used, the careful avoidance of laying any blame at the feet of the families of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, the absolute lack of a clear definitive that one side of the war was _right_ and the other was _wrong_. _They’re rewriting history, Harry, don’t you see?_

Kinsgley didn’t become Minister for Magic—he got put on desk-duty. Instead they got Gideon Leveret; slick and sharp-eyed. He’d avoided the war by disappearing; he had decamped to somewhere sunny in the south while Harry’s friends and family had risked everything, and he came back just in time to take up the mantle of leadership like it was a fashionable new robe. Harry had thought he’d be an idiot, like Fudge, but he was wrong. Leveret’s first act was to ‘streamline’ the Wizengamot. A not-so-subtle shifting of numbers, of titles; a flood of purebloods into recently vacated seats with no mention of the reason for their previous occupants’ disappearances. So many Halfbloods and Muggleborns had fled during the war, and so many of them simply didn’t come back. Harry didn’t blame them. Hermione thought it was all a set-up, a carefully planned seizure of the Ministry; better thought-out and more effective than anything Voldemort had dreamed of. Because this time—the general public were convinced that it was all a _good idea_. 

By the autumn, Harry had taken to wandering around London. The endless waiting wore on him, and he felt like a ghost haunting Grimmauld Place, unable to move on. Some days he needed to see people—just see them walking and laughing and living—to remember that he had actually come back from that strange white train platform. He found himself walking down Diagon Alley—Glamoured, because he wasn’t so much of a glutton for punishment that he’d risk the stampede of attention his own face would bring—and lingered to listen in on a pair of witches talking outside the Apothecary.

“No, Valerie, they can’t possibly start the trials now! Have you seen the _Prophet_? They’re right you know—with prejudice running as high as it is, it wouldn’t be safe for these poor people they’re accusing.”

Her friend frowned, “But they’re _Death Eater_ s, dear—”

Harry had swallowed hard and Disapparated on the spot, not waiting to hear the rest. He needed to leave before his trembling rage spilled over and soared and soared—it had been growing, bitter and hot, since the end of the war, the end that wasn’t an end. Safely away from the bustling crowds of Diagon, Harry let his anger wash over him. Once he might have destroyed the trinkets and ornaments that sat on the shelves, but the relics of the Black family were long gone. So he sat alone and silent in the barren parlour of Grimmauld Place with his head in his hands and his heart in his mouth and his magic burning in his fingertips for hours—until Ron found him. 

“She just—she was worried about _them_ not being safe. About fucking _Death Eaters_ , Ron. Have people forgotten, already?” The words burned Harry’s throat.

“No, mate, _no_. She must have been a bloody idiot. Anyone with their head screwed on knows that these trials are our chance to clean house. We’re going to put the war behind us once and for all—you’ll see.” Ron’s grip on his shoulder was warm and firm, and his voice and practicality was as grounding as always. “Come on, let’s go to the Burrow, it’s Wednesday—there’ll be chicken pie and mashed potatoes tonight.”

  


* * *

  


By the time the trials began, a year after the Battle of Hogwarts, Ron’s words echoed in Harry’s memory with the grim toll of prediction. _You’ll see_. And he did. He saw Death Eaters—Marked and unmarked—sitting before a Wizengamot filled with Purebloods, claiming they only did what they did under the influence of Imperius. But the court dosed them all with Veritaserum; they even had newly-sanctioned Legilimancers on hand to sift through the memories of the accused, one of Leveret’s new policies. And still, almost every one of them managed to connive and evade the truth, wriggling off the chopping block like maggots. Harry didn’t understand.

It was spring, a month into the trials, and the fruit trees in the garden around the Burrow were heavy with blossom. Harry stared out of the window, ignoring the generous spread of Sunday lunch, and watched petals fall in the late afternoon breeze while Percy lamented the practice of microdosing Veritaserum that was now an open secret amongst the Ministry officials. 

Hermione was the only one engaging him—everyone else was eating quietly, a stark departure from the old days of loud conversation and laughter. Her questions were beginning to verge on interrogation, shock in every syllable. “What do you mean ‘microdosing’? They’re deliberately taking Veritaserum before they go to court?” 

“Yes. For _months_ , apparently. It makes you—not immune to the potion, but pretty resistant. It gives you leeway to work around questions and tell the truth, but not the _whole_ truth. Removes that impulse to just spill everything out, you know?” He spoke around a mouthful of roast potato and gravy-soaked beef, and carried on eating like he hadn’t just gutted Harry right there in the kitchen.

That night, queasy with anxiety and hunger—he hadn’t been able to eat another bite after finding out that every trial was so fucking compromised—Harry joined Arthur in his shed full of telephone books and old computers. Harry was due to testify the following day, and Percy had just shattered the one failsafe he had been propping himself up with. If the surviving Death Eaters couldn’t be compelled by Veritaserum, it would fall to witnesses to prove their guilt. And Harry had seen more than almost anyone. He would be the only one to stand witness to so many of their acts—their victims dead and gone. Arthur was kind, thoughtful, realistic, and—despite his best efforts—utterly discouraging.

“You have to understand, Harry, these people come from families that have lawyers and money that _can_ give them an advantage. Dumbledore wanted you to learn Occlumency to protect you from Voldemort’s spying—don’t look at me like that, I know Severus let you down—but these people have been taught to Occlude since they were _children_.” He sighed heavily, and Harry was struck by how old Arthur looked. He had fought through two wars, had lost a son, and despite his smiles and good-natured heart, he was greyer than ever before, his eyes sadder. “Never mind the Veritaserum business, the truth is, your testimony is going to be key. For good or ill, you _are_ the figurehead of the winning side, and people will look to you for truth and reliability.” His hand was heavy on Harry’s shoulder. “You can do this, Harry. I believe in you.”

Harry didn’t sleep that night, and he rose with gritty eyes and heavy limbs on the morning of his first day as witness. Molly and Arthur came with him, and the walk through the dark tiled corridors of the Ministry threw him back to his own trial. For a moment he wildly hoped Dumbledore would arrive and fix it all. But only for a moment. He had dreamed of these hallways for months, when Voldemort was luring him to that dreadful night in the Department of Mysteries—memories simmered of Sirius’s expression as he fell through the veil, and the raging grief Harry had felt as he’d chased Bellatrix through the maze of the corridors that had echoed with her manic laughter. But Harry squashed it all down as the Weasleys left him to join the public gallery, pushing it away until he could breathe, and think. He sat and waited until the usher called his name, then stood and swallowed hard before following him into Courtroom Number Four, his hastily-tailored robes catching on his heels.

Inside, Walden Macnair sat proudly before the assembled Wizengamot. Harry remembered his frustrated bloodlust when Buckbeak escaped, his unrestrained glee at Voldemort’s return in the graveyard, and his violence during the Battle of Hogwarts—he’d laughed over the body of a fifth year; she was blonde, and had looked very small amongst the rubble. Macnair was tall and strong-looking, with a thin black moustache that only emphasised the mean slant of his mouth. He even had the gall to smile at the assembled court and jury. 

Harry was directed to sit in a boxed-off chair to the side as the Chief Warlock read off the list of crimes Macnair was accused of. It took long minutes to recite them all, and Harry looked at the floor as blood-hot memories assailed him. Then he was called, and every eye turned to him as he made his way to the witness stand. 

“Good morning, I am Edgar Fiddlewood, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. I will be asking you questions today.” He paused, and Harry recognised him from the last time he’d been in this court. He had voted for Harry’s expulsion from Hogwarts. “You are Mr Harry James Potter, of Islington?” 

Harry swallowed, his mouth was suddenly dry, and his throat clicked in protest. “Yes, sir.”

“And do you swear to tell the truth before this court?”

He had been coached for the next part. "I do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

“On Merlin’s name?”

That was new.

“Yes.” Harry would swear on any name they liked, just so long as they got on with it.

“And do you willingly submit to Veritaserum and restricted Legilimency, in the search for truth, and _justice_?”

Nobody had told him about this, he thought it was only the defendant that was being subjected to the dosing and the Legilimency. Harry cast his gaze toward the public gallery, and saw Hermione and Ron frowning. What was he supposed to say? He could hardly argue with the head of the Wizengamot. He couldn’t say no when he knew damn well that they would spin it into ‘the boy who lived’ disrespecting the Ministry. It might mean they wouldn’t accept his testimony. It had taken them a year to get to this stage, he had to do it.

“I—yes. I do willingly submit.”

  


* * *

  


He drank the seven drops of Veritaserum mixed with a glass of water, and then the questions began. It was a disaster. Within the first ten minutes they had asked _how_ exactly he knew about Macnair’s crimes, questioned the veracity of his memories on the night of the Triwizard Tournament final, suggested that _trauma,_ or _revenge,_ or _anti-Ministry sentiment_ was colouring his view of Macnair. Harry was struggling to keep up, the truth serum made his lips buzz and his head spin. He kept trying to explain, but hold back on the secrets that mustn’t be told. They couldn’t know about the Elder Wand, they couldn’t know about his death. And then the Legilimens picked up on something—Harry felt it, the whisper of external shock from the witch who had cast herself into his thoughts felt like a cold drop of water sliding down his neck. He had held back all information about Horcruxes, he knew he’d managed that much at least; but he was shit at Occluding and with dawning horror he realised she had settled upon one of the memories he had of his dream-visions of Voldemort. 

Her touch receded from his mind like a door slamming shut—it hurt—and he stood wincing as she whispered to the Wizengamot Elder beside her. He was a grey-haired old wizard, with shrewd blue eyes, and he stared at Harry thin-lipped and solemn-faced as he listened to the witch. Then he stood, his red robes of office settling heavily around him.

He called out, breaking the hush of the room. “Motion to suspend trial. Ms Goldhorn has uncovered information regarding the witness that would undermine his veracity and therefore the entirety of the prosecution’s case.”

Harry’s mouth was open—he couldn’t help it—and he stared at the raised hands of almost every member of the Wizengamot. Leveret’s face was smug and self-satisfied, and the gravity of Harry’s failure settled like stone in his stomach. He looked across the courtroom to find Ron and Hermione, and their pale faces were all the confirmation he needed. Not only was Macnair going to get away with his crimes; Harry wasn’t going to be called to witness again. 

  


* * *

  


Harry slumped against the hallway, the front door of Grimmauld Place firmly shut behind him, blocking out the white flashes of cameras and the hounding questions from reporters. They had followed him from the Ministry—chased him—repeating the endless questions and accusations that had been hurled at him all day in the Wizengamot. He took off his glasses and rubbed his face, then pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and groaned. He felt battered, bruised. Today was the day he was supposed to have stood up and spoken for all of the people who’d died, who’d been tortured; he was supposed to have got them justice. But all he’d done was trip at the first hurdle and take a bloody kicking in front of the court, and the public gallery, and all of the journalists who had shown up to watch the spectacle.

Ron and Hermione arrived by Floo; they’d been caught up in the scrum of journalists that had rushed out of the courtroom after Harry’s quick departure. Ron had already opened the Firewhiskey by the time Harry had joined them in the living room, and the bottle didn’t last long.

He woke the next morning on the sofa, and stumbled to the window to stop the incessant tapping of the owl sitting on the window ledge. It had a copy of the _Prophet_ in its claws, and pecked him viciously until he took it. A lurid green parchment-note was stuck to the rolled up paper. _Fresh off the press, courtesy of your old friend, Rita._

Despite the overwhelming urge to throw the whole package into the fire and Incendio it, Harry’s curiosity won out. He unfurled the newspaper and stood staring at the front page for long minutes. There was a picture of him, standing in the dock looking just as horrified as he had felt at the moment he had been asked to submit to the Veritaserum and Legilimency. The headline, all in bold: _**What Does Harry Potter Have To Hide?**_ The article itself was even worse; Skeeter had used all of her old techniques to smear Harry—she even brought up Cedric, and Cho, and other examples of _how far Harry Potter’s delusions go_. 

Ron Vanished it as soon as he saw it, and reminded Harry that the _Prophet_ had tried this before—he just had to weather the torment and it would pass. But the next day, it was even worse. An ‘anonymous source’ had told Skeeter about Harry’s _disturbing connection with Lord Voldemort_ , the Wizengamot Legilimens, no doubt; the details were too exact to be anybody else. 

That was just the beginning of the storm. Every day was a new exposure, a feeding frenzy—Harry’s blood was in the water. 

The trials collapsed without Harry’s testimony; a few Death Eaters were put under extended house-arrest, a handful were sentenced to Azkaban based on the testimony from other _reputable_ witnesses (who were never asked to take truth potions, or to open their minds to prying magic), but most of them got away with it. Macnair, Dolohov. Yaxley, too—Arthur even caught wind that Yaxley was being considered for a job in the Ministry not a fortnight after his trial was finished. 

Ron and Hermione and all the others tried to keep Harry going, but he couldn’t escape the awful weight of his guilt. He should have tried harder to resist the Veritaserum, he shouldn’t have let them use the truth as a weapon against him. He should have learned Occlumency when he had the chance; then he wouldn’t have lost Sirius, he wouldn’t have let that woman into his head to scour out the darkest shades of his war, to spill his guts in front of the Wizengamot. 

Ron stopped drinking with him after the first couple of months, and looked worried at the vials of Dreamless Sleep in the bathroom, but he didn’t say anything. And Harry felt guilty about that too, but he couldn’t sleep, and he couldn't sit with his shame either—not without the burning heat of drink to soften the blow. So he drank alone.

Harry had made a run to the Muggle off-licence on the main road to stock up for the night; he hadn’t been to Diagon Alley in months, since the summer. Even so, there were reporters waiting on the pavement outside the house when he got back, and he shouldered his way past them to get to the door. He waited in the hallway until the shouts died down, hiding like a child. It was dark outside now, the winter days were short and full, and he waited until the street went quiet before he risked slipping into the living room. He’d left the curtains open when he’d left, so he closed them before he lit the lamps in case any lingering paps caught sight of his shadow moving around inside. As he drew the heavy fabric together and the room fell into darkness, the bang of Apparition cracked around the room—staccato and shocking in the privacy of his home. 

Harry cast a hasty Lumos, expecting dark cloaks and the masks of Death Eaters still running from the law. But it was scarlet robes and half-familiar faces that met the light, and for a moment Harry wondered if they were there to protect him, to stop the hounding press, until he realised they all still had their wands out, and they were trained firmly on him.

“Alright Potter, you’re coming with us, nice and easy.”

“What do you mean? Where are you—” Harry frowned, his initial confusion falling into a chasm of fear. None of them were wearing badges, though he could see the pin-marks in their uniforms where they should be sitting proudly. “Who are you?”

One of them muttered to his partner, eyeing the empty bottle on the side table. “Doesn’t matter, mate. Put your wand down.”

Harry firmed his grip on his wand, raised it and flicked his gaze between them—the seven of them filled the spacious front room and blocked the door to the hall. Fighting back wasn’t an option, he couldn’t take them on all at once—not half-cut—he’d have to run. Destination, determination, and deliberation. He jerked his wand to Apparate to the Burrow, bracing himself for the nausea-inducing squeeze of magic, but nothing happened. He tried again. And again. Around him the men laughed, and Harry set his jaw as he realised they had done something to keep him there.

“New bit of kit from down in the Department of Mysteries,” explained the dark-haired Auror who seemed to be in charge, pulling a silver device from his pocket. It was a gyroscope, and at its heart was a spinning darkness. “Transportable anti-Apparition ward. You’re not going anywhere, Potter. Not without us.”

That prompted another round of laughter from the others, and Harry’s drink-slow mind caught up to the knife-sharp slice of awareness cutting up his spine, the same edge that Harry had always felt when he was in real danger. It was painfully familiar. Trapped, an animal with its foot in a steel trap, Harry raised his wand to cast—he had never yielded before, and he wouldn’t start now. Before he could cast a single spell, a vivid flash of red light burst across the room and hit him in the chest. The last thing he saw before the Stunner took hold was the embroidered _M_ on the breast of the leader’s crimson uniform. Aurors.


	2. Conquest by Fortune

Draco had first heard about the _Dog Fights_ —the charming name for the underground combat matches that brought such delight to those in the know—in Knockturn Alley. Borgin and Burkes still had the corner on the market for excellent quality artefacts of the rare and unsavoury variety, and Draco had always had a passion for collecting curios. Three rather derelict-looking wizards were passing bookies’ notes between themselves, muttering about the result of the upcoming fight. Once Draco heard the whispered name, his interest was piqued, and while there was no official promotion of the event, he knew that discovering more was simply a case of talking to the right people. The veneer of respectability was fine indeed with some of his more distant acquaintances, but he knew the ones who had a taste for violence. Like recognises like, after all. 

He was intrigued by what he discovered, and from whom. Thomas McGruder had always been a thug, and happy enough for everyone to know about it, so Draco was nonplussed when he mentioned a vicious brawl he’d lost ten Galleons on. But he was also so far down the food chain there was no way he could conjure any details that would interest Draco; he wasn’t interested in cheering along with the gutter-scrapings. It was a week later, in town, that Draco had needed to work to stifle his surprise. A chance encounter with Evangeline Rosier as he passed Twilfitt and Tattings had resulted not only in details of the next fight night, but an invitation, and a suggestion of dress-code—much more in keeping with Draco’s taste. She had successfully kept her head down at Beauxbatons and the Parisian Institute for Enchanted Couture during the war years, but had stepped neatly back into British society the year after Potter disappeared. Draco would have been surprised at her sweet smile and sleepy eyes that lit up in obvious enjoyment of these evenings of barbarity—she explained the rules and the set-up with a breathless excitement—but then, Evan Rosier _was_ her uncle; perhaps it was a family trait. 

These Dog Fights sounded nothing like the formalised conflict of the competitive duellers that Draco had dreamed of becoming when he was a child—if professional Quidditch or becoming Minister for Magic hadn’t panned out. There were no sponsorship deals for these underground fighters, no magazine covers, no elegant international events or well-reported rankings. They were head-to-head fights—to the death, if rumour were to be believed—with no rules, no referee, and no points system bar blood on the floor. The game was simple: you win, or you die. 

Draco, of course, had immediately taken Evangeline up on her offer of vouching for him. She had smiled coyly and her touch lingered on his hand when they said goodbye, and Draco understood quite how passionate she was about watching two wizards fight to the death. He didn’t have to wait long to indulge his own curiosity. Just two nights later he received a letter and small parcel delivered by a non-descript little tawny owl. The cardstock was heavy, and its contents listed the instructions for attending in a simple script embossed in gold lettering on a coal-dark parchment: a time, Portkey instructions, an obsequious flourish about the pleasure of receiving a guest of his stature, and assurances regarding the anonymity of attendance. There was no mention of location, or clue as to who had organised this little fete of ferocity. 

Since his father’s tragic and untimely death, Draco’s mother had moved to the Dowager’s Wing. She rarely left it, even to spend time with Draco; her marriage had been a love match, and she still struggled to accept Draco’s choices, her grief a wall between them. Draco himself had taken residence in the master suite; the expansive series of rooms that his parents had inhabited for the duration of their marriage. Since he took ownership of his inheritance, Draco had remodelled extensively, here and in the rest of the Manor. The old stone of the Manor hadn’t yielded easily; it fought him at every turn; woven carpets attempting to bog him down in tangled patterns, heavy curtains and drapes trying to strangle him when he stripped them from the windows. But Draco had become used to doing difficult things; Voldemort had been mad and insidious, but his time under the half-blood’s thumb had shown Draco the depths of his own reserves of intellect and determination. Now he had the freedom to bend those traits to his own designs, and Draco was almost grateful for his war-time experiences.

He was now the rightful master of an ancient manor, and had claimed that ownership with tooth and nail and blood poured into the wards, not all of it his own. Every fibre of cloth, every panel of wood, every curlicue of brass and pane of glass was _his_ , and the heavy weight of ancestral magic that lay quietly waiting in every corner bowed to him, and him only. His mother didn’t approve, but she did understand, and well she should—it was she and Lucius that had taught him this way of life, she had no right to complain when the result wasn’t to _her_ satisfaction. And she lived well enough, content with her rooms of mourning, her visits with her sister, and watching her son best her husband in every regard.

Draco set down the letter and resumed dressing. Like most of the wizarding community of his generation, he had adopted the new style of Muggle clothes beneath open robes. It was the most superficial of integrations. But he liked it, liked the crisp lines of his trousers, the pearl buttons of his shirt, combined with the elegant drape of the black evening robes he had purchased the previous week—Italian, cut short and modern, embroidered with Acromantula silk and lined in deepest blue damask. The invitation had _VIP_ in place of a header, and as crass as it was, Draco knew it meant he would fit in perfectly dressed like this.

The skeleton clock on his sideboard chimed gently, its golden movement exposed, cogs held with pins of emerald and sapphire, the perpetual motion charm glinting as it spun in the centre of the face like a tiny sun. It was time. Draco unwrapped the Portkey—it was a knife, of all bloody things, simple but sharp as he tested it against his thumb—and grit his teeth against the swooping stretch of the magic as it transported him.

  


* * *

  


The Portkey deposited him in a small foyer, dark and enclosed and bristling with anti-Apparition wards strong enough he could taste them in the air. He was glad for the blade in his hand; he was tempted to use it in annoyance at the discomfort. A security wizard, with a placid look on his rough-hewn face, waited at a heavy metal door behind which Draco could already hear an excited cacophony.

“Has the night begun already?” Draco asked.

“Just the warm-up bouts, sir.” He nodded towards the knife still held in Draco’s hand. “Our first-class guests arrive in time for the main event, unless specified ahead of schedule. I—ah—” He gestured at the small dagger still clasped loosely in Draco’s hand. “I’ll be needing to take that now, sir.”

“I’ll be keeping it, actually.”

For a moment there was a stalemate, but Draco slipped the knife into the inside pocket of his suit and raised his palms in a facsimile of harmlessness. The bouncer grimaced, but moved aside and swung the door open for Draco, revealing the space beyond. It was bigger than he’d imagined it would be, set up just like an amphitheatre—stepped oval tiers leading up from a central stage—and he had arrived in the middle balcony. A heavy ward slipped over him as he stepped over the threshold, he was assaulted immediately by the heat of the crowd, and the shouts and frenetic energy of the room as the ring below was cleared. Down below, he could see blood on the hard-packed sand of the ring. Beside Draco, barriers ran along the black-carpeted route he was led down, heavy black rope and prickling magic keeping the rabble back from the entrance. They were packed into the upper tiers, looking down at the arena below from a distance. Draco wondered if McGruder was up there tonight, losing more money on ill-placed bets.

A young witch appeared at his side, dressed in a simple grey uniform, balancing a tray expertly on one hand. Her face was strangely bland, unrecognisable. Draco caught the edge of a Glamour; they certainly did take their anonymity seriously.

“A drink, sir?” She asked, and even her voice was… indistinct.

“Firewhisky, something from the Isles, on Everlasting Ice.”

It appeared on her tray a moment later, smoking and glowing in a heavy crystal tumbler. She gestured with her hand, and he followed her as she led him down wide stairs to the best seats in the house—arranged around the very boundary of the fighting ring. He seated himself in the comfortable leather chair she drew for him, and took his drink with a nod of thanks for her service. He was as close to the action as one could get without partaking; close enough to smell the blood on the floor, to feel the grit of kicked up sand beneath his shoes. Before him, the perimeter of the duelling ring throbbed with the power of nullifying wards; no spell cast from within the ward could pass out, and vice versa. But the sand under his feet whispered that _some_ things could pass through the barrier, and Draco’s blood quickened.

“The next bout will begin shortly, sir. Just raise your hand if you need further service.” With that, his waitress disappeared, leaving Draco to focus on his surroundings.

The VIP section was much more sparsely populated than the balconies above, with each hungry-eyed guest seated in their own wingback chesterfield—black, naturally. Draco settled back comfortably, and took advantage of the lull in activity to watch his fellow audience members, both low and high. 

People talked about these nights with hushed voices, disgust and delight mingling in their tone, and he could see why, now. The tension in the air was mounting as the audience waited for the next round of fighting. Up above, four ranks of balconies stretched up to the gods, dense with bodies leaning forward and jostling for a better view. 

Draco wasn’t the only ex-Death Eater here—though, could one ever really be an _ex_ -Death Eater with Voldemort’s mark still branded into their flesh? With the lingering remnants of his blood-slick magic still laced into their skin, and muscle, and bone? There were others here too; he recognised them all, still.

Perhaps in the upper tiers there were common criminals amongst the bloodthirsty congregation. Men and women, Veela and Hag, young and old. But here in the luxury of the front row there was an altogether more respectable group waiting for the main event. Upstanding members of the wizarding community. A minister or two, tonight, attempting to hide in deep hoods or under the carefully bland features of the heavily Glamoured—though none of them were disguised well enough for Draco to mistake them. 

And tonight, Draco was here too. He hadn’t bothered with attempts to disguise or conceal himself. The rumours that followed him like hungry alley-cats were already dark enough, and he had no fear that his reputation would suffer or improve as a result of being spotted here tonight. Lured out of his routine—like the rest of the audience—by the unknown, by the darkness and the secrecy, by the promise of catharsis, of violence, of the primal truth of a fight to the death. But not just to the death—it was a fight for life—to the victor goes _life,_ and was there any prize more cutting and sharp than the continued beat of the heart, the agony of awareness, the wild ecstasy of existence? 

A wizard walked into the ring. He was middle-aged, with slicked-back hair and a curling waxed moustache—Draco couldn’t place his face, but the tingle of recognition lit in his mind; he’d seen this man before. His ostentatious purple robes glowed in the spotlight now fixed upon him, and Draco heard the whispered Sonorous he cast before calling out, silencing the crowds.

“And now for this evening’s prime entertainment, the one we know you’ve _all_ been waiting for, you blood-hungry folk. Our current champion will duel last week’s winning contender, to the bitter and delicious end. We know you all remember last week’s winner—Matthieu Brosseau!”

The crowd burst into noise, shouting and cheering and jeering in equal measure. The man released into the packed-sand ring was tall and rangy. He swaggered into the arena, his arms flung wide as if to embrace the crowd. Arrogant confidence hummed in every line of his body as he paraded around the circle, allowing every member of the audience to see him; the grin on his face was cocky, and his dark eyes were lit with a hungry anticipation of the fight. Draco was surprised, he had assumed the participants in these fights would have been cowed, forced to fight against their will—it hadn’t put him off coming, but he had wondered how sweet the struggle could really be if the participants were sullen and desperate. This Brosseau looked like he’d been waiting for tonight eagerly. If _this_ was anything to go by, tonight’s entertainment would be well worth the trouble he’d taken to come.

“Facing him across this hallowed arena we have our all-time champion, the man who needs no introduction—Blake Conrí—the wolf amongst dogs, the merciful blade, the right hand of Death! He’s the best we’ve ever had with three _years_ of winning bouts behind him—now come on, you know how to welcome the safest bet in the house!”

This time there was no cheering, and no booing either. Instead, as a sandy-haired man walked calmly into the ring, followed by ghostly blue wolves that prowled the perimeter of the wards, the crowds began to stamp their feet; rhythmic, pounding, building in intensity, shaking the building. Draco could feel the thunder in his bones as he sat and watched the man, comparing his height and build and attitude to his opponent, wondering how the duel would play out. Conrí wasn’t courting the crowd like Brosseau, he simply stood waiting, holding himself still and quiet. He ignored the spectral wolves as they sat on either side of him, before fading like heat shimmer; they must have been cast by the organisers, a dramatic gimmick for their reigning champion. He was tall, and there was a tension in his limbs, in his broad shoulders; a coiled anticipation. This one was dangerous, Draco thought; this one was ready.

At some signal only they could hear, both men held their hands out before them, palm up like children awaiting a gift. A haze of shimmering magic bent the air above their hands, and then each held a wand—Draco wondered if they were allowed wands outside of the ring at all, and wondered how willing these participants could really be. Even with their wands now in their hands, they still waited, ignoring the Compere entirely. Brosseau assumed a crouched _en garde_ position, his wand held in front, ready to cast—he must have had some classical duelling training, at least. But Conrí still stood simply, his wand held loosely at his side. He looked casual, as though he was waiting in line at the Apothecary. Silent and steady.

Draco sipped at his drink, and relished the cold burn of the fire and ice as he sat back in his seat. This duel promised to be eventful, and he was suddenly glad of his own insatiable curiosity for bringing him there that night. He didn’t know how the fight would end, and for once, he was glad not to be able to predict the outcome of the next hour of his life. 

The Compere’s voice boomed out over the noise as the crowd’s excitement and screaming rose, even as he backed away from the tableau of Conrí and Brosseau. “This is the fight of the night, honoured guests, and as always—no rules, no limits, _nothing_ is Unforgivable except a poor show—last blood wins. Gentlemen, ready your wands and fight in three...two...one!” With that, he disappeared, leaving the ring to the duellers.

Draco settled into his chair, hiding his anticipation behind a mask of dispassionate perusal. 

When the Compere left the ring, it was just Blake Conrí and Matthieu Brosseau. For long moments, nothing happened; both duellers sizing each other up. Of course, they couldn’t have met before—unless there was such a thing as practice rounds or sparring, but somehow Draco couldn’t imagine that the organisers indulged their participants in such niceties. 

It was Brosseau who took the first shot, casting a cloud of darkness that Conrí swept away with an irritated wave of his hand before raising his own wand and returning fire. Draco watched the twist of his wrist and the set of his shoulders, and an uncomfortably strong feeling of déjà vu settled upon him. He didn’t know this man’s face; he’d never seen him before. But somehow, Draco recognised the way he cast, the way he held himself. 

Both of the men in the ring were bloody and panting by the time Draco worked through his confusion. The wards protecting the audience from the fight didn’t stop the smell of magic from passing through, and when he caught the scent of ozone and electricity Draco suddenly knew with blinding clarity exactly who was watching. He might be wearing another man’s body, but the man in the ring with the sandy blonde hair was Harry Potter. Draco couldn’t prove it, he could hardly even believe it himself, but it had to be—nobody else had magic that tasted like that on the air. Nobody else moved quite like him; like something wild and free kept caged too long. 

Draco leaned forward, suddenly more invested in the outcome of the bout than he had ever imagined he might be. If that really _was_ Potter, then he had survived every match he had been in so far. He had fought, _to the death_ , and won. Three years, the Compere had said, three years of fighting and winning. But would he win again tonight?

Brosseau fired off a Reducto that caught Conrí in his side, and there—there was something in the twist of his mouth that Draco _recognised_. He recognised it from midnight duels in school, from an empty train carriage, from Malfoy Manor, from the Battle of Hogwarts, and even from that first—and last—day of Potter’s testimony in the Wizengamot. That tell of pain. Conrí didn’t even cry out, despite the blood staining his shirt—just pressed his hand against the wound and fired off a Sponge-Knees curse, leaving Brosseau struggling to stand. 

The back and forth of curse and spell was bright and colourful and carried the scorching taste of offensive magic, and amongst it all they grappled and fought bodily, too. They ended up on the ground. Conrí had cast a suspiciously effective Expelliarmus—Draco _had_ to be right, he _had_ to—and tangled Brosseau in a fierce grip; arms and legs wrapped around him. Conrí’s arm was firm around Brosseau’s neck, a lock of muscle and bone that tightened even as Brosseau struggled wildly against him.

Draco could hear the heaving gasps of Brosseau fighting for air, he could even hear the dull thud of his heels as they kicked against the hard-packed sand he lay on. His nails drew blood where they scratched and tore at Conrí’s face and arms, but he couldn’t get free. Conrí was resolute in his determination—there was no whisper of restraint or regret as he slowly strangled the life from his opponent, not a moment of relaxation in the strong lines of his body.

Draco saw it, the moment Brosseau yielded. It was a long exhalation, a spasm of his fingers, and with one final clench of Conrí’s arms the light in Brosseau’s eyes went out. 

Dead. Killed in front of Draco. By Harry Potter.

But he wasn’t sure. He would have to be sure, before he acted. So Draco left his unfinished drink behind, and slipped away while the crowd roared in approval. He would need to come back, he would need to see more. 

Once home, Draco settled in his office and drew out the Portkey knife that had taken him into that theatre of violence and revelation. He tested the edge, then pressed the pad of his thumb against the sharp point until a bead of blood welled up. It rolled slowly down the edge of his thumb, wicking along his fingerprint until he raised it to his mouth and ran his tongue over the salt-iron slick of it. He had found Harry Potter, and that knowledge was a weapon. He called for wine, red, and watched the darkness bleed into light as he planned.

  


* * *

  


Draco’s second visit to the arena was boring in comparison with that first, revelatory, night. 

He watched a werewolf manacled with exquisite Goblin-crafted metalwork tear through three men before finally being felled by a witch with auburn hair. She had ripped out a shattered tibia protruding from one of the corpses and used its jagged end to first gouge out the beast’s eyes, and then stab at its soft places—belly, groin, throat—again and again, until the blood stopped flowing. There had been no wands in that match, though the transformed werewolf’s obvious advantage had been offset by the four-to-one odds. 

Far from indulging in a victory lap of the ring, the woman had fallen to her knees, sobbing unashamedly before the screaming audience. In the brief moment before she dropped to the floor, shot in the back with two Stunners, Draco caught the glint of wolf-gold in her eyes. He swallowed, and cast his gaze over the rest of the bodies around her. All of them were scarred, but not simply from duelling curses or physical fights—claw and tooth marks, on every one. All of them had been werewolves, perhaps even a pack. 

A cruel game, these Dog Fights. Draco stayed until the end of the night, but Blake Conrí was not forthcoming. Draco would have to wait to confirm his suspicions.

A month later, Draco received another gold-lettered invitation and another Portkey—a black gambling chip this time, marked for a hundred Galleons. He flicked it across his knuckles as he waited for the activation time, and knew that if _Conrí_ was to fight again tonight, Draco would be happy to bet this much and more that he would be able to tell, for sure, if he really was Potter. 

The squeezing twist of Portkey travel dropped Draco once again into a nondescript but luxurious waiting room, the same security wizard from his first visit waiting in front of a different door. Again, Draco was led down to the luxury area, sitting close enough to the wards of the fighting ring that he could feel the friction of them in the air. 

He recognised other regulars now; the starkly beautiful Veela whose eyes dilated with lust whenever the duel reached its crescendo before them; the Minister who screamed as brazenly as the bawling masses above them when the winner delivered the final blow of the fight. Draco himself was becoming known, and noticed. A slick, dark-haired wizard tried to make conversation with him at the end of the last fight he attended, flushed and lecherous in the wake of the werewolf bout—but Draco had been vaguely disgusted, and hadn’t indulged him. Tonight it was the Compere who interrupted his lazy mingling to make a beeline for Draco.

“Good evening, Mr Malfoy, so _lovely_ to have you with us again, so lovely.” He grinned, and his mustache twitched with avarice. “If there’s anything I can help with, Mr Malfoy, anything at all—you know who to ask.” 

Draco simply smiled and nodded. He brushed the man off with the standard niceties, and in the quiet of his own mind he thought _yes_ , I’ll remember that.

It didn’t take long for the Compere to abandon his social climbing and appear again in the center of the arena, the ringmaster for this dark little circus. “It’s been a month since he last graced this humble stage, but tonight I once again bring you Blake Conrí—the man that _just won’t die_.”

Just like the last time, the crowds started up their stamping, thunderous welcome for their favorite fighter; and just like last time, Conrí entered the ring with casual disinterest in every line of his body and face, followed by the ghostly wolves that were apparently his trademark. Draco knew better than to believe the appearance of relaxation now, though. He knew that beneath the facade was a tightly coiled spring of power ready to be let loose.

“And going up against our reigning champion is a new contender—Ansel Jonker!” The man in question prowled into the ring. He was shirtless, his muscled torso on display; aggression in every line of his body. He scowled at Conrí as the Compere continued with his introduction. “Last week you watched him slay his way through _three_ of our finest competitors—place your bets now, because we have high hopes for tonight!” The Compere began to waver like a mirage, some spell slowing fading him from his spot in the centre of the ring. 

Jonker and Conrí stood for a moment, watching each other as their wands were deposited in their hands, as the Compere disappeared. A wisely prompt retreat, it appeared, as all of Conrí’s silence and stillness evaporated in the blink of an eye—he exploded into furious action, as though a spell had been cast, transforming that strange serenity into all-out savagery. The first hit he landed on Jonker was a heavy punch to his jaw, then a kick to the gut that had him stumbling backwards—winded and bloody-mouthed before a single spell had been cast. Conrí stalked the ring, looking for weak points in his opponent’s movements with a wolf’s eye for vulnerable points, for soft skin and strung tendons, hounding Jonker as he danced backwards and cast hasty defensive spells. Draco recognised the look on Conrí’s face—it was that of hunter, not prey—and licked his lips in delight.

Draco leaned forward, his attention caught, and dark pleasure settled over him, adrenaline coursing through his blood—electric-hot and enervating. He hadn’t liked to watch torture when he had been under Voldemort’s thumb, not on the helpless, the unarmed. There had been no pleasure in that, no thrill. What did it prove? Nothing. But this? Two well-matched wizards who were armed with their wands, who looked like they relished this dance? And if Conrí really was Potter… Draco hadn’t been so excited in years.

Conrí cast with both his wand and his empty left hand, cradling curses in his palm to throw after his wand-spells battered at the Protego his opponent had thrown up between them. Jonker responded with a Crucio thrown so casually, but with such remarkable vigour, that even Draco raised an impressed eyebrow. Conrí simply shrugged it off with a grimace, though, and cast an Ossa Crepate in response that left the fingers of Jonker’s right hand contorted and bent; small, jagged bones broke through the skin and bled, adding to the dark stains on the floor of the arena. They circled around the ring, chasing each other, panting and watching for the merest hint of a telegraphed movement from their adversary, silent amidst the screams and jeers of the crowd. 

Draco could see the method in Conrí’s technique, though. He allowed Jonker to land a curse or two on him—taking blows, swallowing down pain, lulling him into a false sense of security as he wiped blood from his face—but never truly allowing him to take the lead. While he left openings in his own defence that Jonker couldn’t resist, Conrí was harrying his opponent, each carefully placed hex and curse putting him on the back foot. And then, Jonker spun with a flourish to cast what sounded like it would have been another Crucio, but Conrí ducked into a dive and flipped his wand like a knife, severing Crane’s right hamstring with the neatest slicing charm Draco had ever seen outside of the Manor kitchens.

Draco thought of the _chiffonade_ of basil that had adorned his supper earlier that evening—delicate and perfumed, a lacework of soft green, and undoubtedly prepared with the same spell—as Conrí moved in close and fast to his crippled opponent. Jonker was on his knees now, screaming and grasping at the wound on the back of his leg, his wand lying on the sand next to him. Conrí grabbed him by the hair, tilted his head back, and stared into his eyes as he cast Sectumsempra with a whip of his wand-hand and a lowly muttered incantation. A vibrant rush of bright arterial spray flew in the same elegant arc of Conrí’s wand and passed through the magical barrier separating the duellers from the front row—Draco had been right, it _did_ only block spells—only to land with a heavy splash on Draco’s cheek. Hot, and wet, and viscous as it trickled across his cheekbone. 

Draco reached his hand up to touch his face, his heart pounding, the slick slide of blood under his fingertips a familiar echo of years he could never forget. He had only ever seen one other person use that incantation—it was Severus’ curse, but he’d never used it, and had forbidden Draco from ever wielding it either. Draco stood, staring at the man in the ring, unembarrassed even as he drew attention to himself from his fellow gluttons for violence in the front row. 

Conrí looked toward him, eyes drawn by his movement amidst the silence and stillness in the wake of his brutally swift victory—and there they were. Green eyes that Draco would know anywhere, in a dream or a nightmare. It _was_ him. With sudden, painful, clarity he knew without a doubt that the man he was looking at was Potter. Harry Potter. Gone from the world, hidden here in an arena of blood and savagery, and found by Draco. 

For a moment, ponderous and weighty, their eye contact was steady. Recognition and awareness were stark on Potter’s bloody face before he turned away, resolute. If the wards around the fighting ring weren’t so strong, Draco was positive his throat would be next on Potter’s list.

Then movement; another wizard came into the ring while Potter stared at Draco. In quick, practiced, succession he fired a Stunner at Potter’s back—Draco watched as those green eyes rolled back into insensibility and he dropped to the blood-stained sand with a heavy thud—then Summoned both of the wands used in the duel. Draco sat back down, appalled at his own lack of discretion, but he looked around and saw smug smiles on the faces of the men and women around him. They thought he was _shocked_. How quickly they all forgot the war, and the crazed animal his family hosted for months before the end of it all. How quickly they forgot the dark rumours of Draco’s early inheritance, his father’s untimely death.

Draco hid his inquisitive stare behind the rim of his glass as the man in the ring moved closer to Potter’s unconscious body. He drew a metal hoop from a pouch at his waist—bright silver—and fastened it around Potter’s neck. It was a torque, heavily engraved with what looked like Goblin runes, the terminals of the band sat heavily against his collarbone. As it settled against his skin, Draco was sure he saw a spark of blue magic, and Potter slumped even further into the filthy dirt. 

With that done, the man cast a Levicorpus and left the ring with Potter’s body floating insensate behind him; bruises blossoming on his skin in the wake of the duel and his throat looking strangely vulnerable with the stark weight of the goblin-wrought metal around it. Draco watched it all, a slinking whisper of inspiration settling in. The ring was empty now but for Jonker’s corpse—on closer inspection, it was a wonder his head was still attached.

The night was over, as far as he was concerned, and far more fruitful than he could have ever imagined. Draco sat back in his chair, sipped at his drink, and stared into the empty ring as his mind spun with ideas and theories and the earth-shaking implications of what this knowledge meant for him. He had been right— _Harry Potter was alive_. And Draco was the one that had found him. He could have laughed out loud, exhilarated, wild with the possibilities—with everything he could _do_ with this knowledge. 


	3. The Qualities of a Prince

For a vipers’ nest full of conflicting agendas, oppositional politics, and war wounds that still seeped and ached, Draco was quite pleased with the party. He had begun throwing these seasonal events when he first inherited, showing off the remodelled Manor and his own burgeoning power simultaneously. 

Tonight, candlelight threw every gilded edge of the ballroom into glowing splendour, the harpist on a dais in the corner wove a lyrical melody around the small talk, and the plans, and the sly promises being made around the room. And Draco was privy to every moment of it; the Manor was old enough to know to listen when its master was curious, and to whisper to him in the late nights he spent in his study planning.

And he had been planning, since his first Dog Fight, on a scale he had never dreamed of until now. Draco had enjoyed the benefits of his inside knowledge of the other families of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, as well as his war-winning peers in the years since the trials. He had used them all like stepping stones, dancing between them to cross the murky waters of his own agenda. Potter’s lot were easy enough to manage. They all thought they had _changed_ since the end of the war—since leaving school and slowly learning to negotiate the ever-shifting sands of political alliances and prejudice that still ran their world—but they hadn’t, not really. Not at their core. Try as they might, they could never quite hide those idealised dreams and urges that shuddered and shrank back from the realisation that _might makes right_. It was the way of the world. It always had been. 

Some of them genuinely didn’t know, and perhaps others had forgotten. They thought that Dumbledore had held sway over wizarding Britain with his moral righteousness and talent for rhetoric—and forgot that the man had been so powerful he’d obliterated one Dark wizard (his own lover, no less), and kept another neatly crushed beneath his heel for more than a decade while waiting for Potter to grow up. More impressive still: Dumbledore had been the stalwart rock upon which had broken the tides of self-interest and prejudice that the ruling elite of the wizarding world had thrown at him for half a century or so. 

It wasn’t that magical Britain had changed, it was just that the power dynamic had shifted irrevocably with the fall of Dumbledore, and as clever as she was, Granger was no Merlin. There was one man who might have had a chance to take the helm, but he had disappeared at the crucial moment—he had allowed the forces moving behind the scenes to publicly hamstring him and then vanished before he could snap at their throats and establish his footing. Even Draco could admit that Potter had the necessary strength; that was why they had gotten _rid_ of him, of course. But without him, without Potter, the scattered remnants of the Order of the Phoenix didn’t have a chance of wrenching the moral compass of the Wizengamot away from the ignominious direction it had been sliding. 

_Potter_. 

The memory of that fight still simmered in Draco’s blood—that brutality, that fierce rage in unmistakeable green eyes. It had been a while since he’d held a trump card quite this profound, and Draco had been savouring it for a fortnight, sampling the taste of it like a fine wine, waiting for tonight. It sustained him though the insincere glad-handing, the vacuous compliments on his inherited splendour, and even the pointed questions about his father’s ‘unfortunate accident’. He was used to it now, the ugly curiosity of those that knew better than to believe the official story—but weren't wise enough to realise that if their sly insinuations really were true, asking _him_ about it was hardly wise.

Mingling with his guests felt just like studying used to at Hogwarts; useful and necessary, if sometimes excruciatingly boring. He had invited the usual lot; the old guard and all the up-and-coming sorts, too. 

Theo had finally gotten through probate and taken the reins of the Nott estate, and he was moving through the assembled crowd with a grace and elegance that Draco sometimes envied, his cigarette weaving silver-lilac trails behind him. Granger and Weasley stuck close to each other as always. Draco predicted an engagement announcement soon; they had probably only held back this long out of some kind of misplaced loyalty to Potter—waiting for his miraculous return to make their commitments. Sentimental and stupid. Though if Draco got what he wanted, perhaps they would be placing notice in the _Prophet_ sooner than later. 

There were other old Hogwarts connections here: Cho Chang had made rather a name for herself on the legal circuit, and Terry Boot was tagging along with her now; handsome, but very much riding on her coattails. Draco slipped through the crowd, champagne in hand, nodding and smiling and spreading platitudes as he went. All of the serious conversations would happen later, when everyone spread out into the games room or the drawing room; the ones with pressing needs would seek Draco out. He eyed Justin Finch-Fletchley as he passed him, half-pissed and as boorish as ever—he thought he and Draco had things in _common_ , as ghastly as that was. As though a merchant family and a posh Muggle school would mean he could relate to being the scion of the Malfoy name. 

Draco neatly sidestepped old Aurelius Hardinge, rich and a traditionalist—but waning in his political usefulness, so not worth Draco’s time—and moved to the grand fireplace at one end of the long ballroom. It was where he always held court at parties; a collection of chairs, Louis the Sixteenth, of course, served as his unofficial office during his little soirées. He settled into his favoured wingback with giltwood frame and finely woven silk upholstery; it was as good as a throne. Within moments Pansy had arrived to lounge across from him. She had a daring Muggle gown on tonight; a plunging neckline in glittering gold with a beaded red flower blooming at each of her hips. It was beautiful on her, the softness and glamour of the dress contrasted sharply against her fair skin and angled black bob. She matched the room: she was pretty as a picture with a knife-like personality.

“Hello darling,” she purred, her dark eyes flickered from his feet to his face. “You look entirely too smug, do tell.”

“I don’t look smug, this is just my face. Anyway, there’s nothing to tell, yet.” 

Blaise leaned against the back of Draco’s chair, looming over him and grinning. “Yet?”

Draco sighed, amused but unwilling to show it. His friends hadn’t changed much either, but it was a comfort to him most of the time. “The two of you should just cast a Joining spell, hitch yourselves together permanently and call it a day. Honestly, you’re both odious.”

“Don’t talk like that in front of the little people, Draco.” Blaise murmured in his ear. “They might not think you’re as nice as you’re pretending to be.”

Draco tilted his head towards Blaise to reply. “Perhaps there are some people I’d rather like to overhear me tonight.”

Pansy arched one perfect eyebrow and leaned forward to listen, and Blaise sighed—already affecting boredom, the wretch. 

“Go on then,” Pansy said.

“I happened to see Evangeline earlier this month, in town.”

“Oh, that cow.” 

“Mmm, she is pretty though, isn’t she?” As expected, Pansy narrowed her eyes. “Anyway, she told me all about a shocking event she’d attended, and was generous enough to arrange an invitation for me that week.”

“Was it—?” Blaise began.

Draco quirked him a grin. “Yes, it was. A _Dog Fight_. A much grander affair than I’d expected, actually, and quite as brutal as rumoured.”

Pansy bit her lip, she’d always been squeamish. “Do you really see it all then?”

“Yes,” Draco touched his fingers to his cheek, if he closed his eyes, he could still feel the way the blood had splattered heavy and hot on his skin. An echo of adrenaline shivered down his spine. “Yes, you really do. It was remarkable.”

“Tell us then, Draco. What was it like?” Blaise was trying to sound cool and unaffected, but Draco had known him since they were eleven, and he knew the dark curiosity he had just roused.

“It was… visceral. I was only there for one bout on the first night, but it was worth it. I’ve been back twice since then. A fortnight ago I saw the most astonishing fight—would you believe the winner’s first move was a punch?” Draco shook his head. “A wand in his hand, and he chose to hit his opponent—hard enough I saw a tooth on the floor—but still, a punch.”

“Did it last long?” Pansy asked. She was frowning already, hating the details.

Draco paused, reflecting. “It felt like it lasted for moments, but those moments stretched into hours. But it couldn’t have been so long—they could never have sustained that intensity for as long as an hour. The duelling was as wild as anything I saw during the war, and they were well-matched.”

“Who won? Did you bet on anyone?” Blaise; always interested in the highlights, and never shy of a gamble.

Of course that was the moment when, regular as clockwork, the white knight brigade approached him. At every party he hosted, they were careful to greet him and thank him and tell him what a lovely job he’d done. At every event they hosted, he did the same. It was part of the prickly and disconnected dance they had all been engaged in since the end of the trials; since Draco and his ilk succeeded in swaying public opinion and the Ministry itself sufficiently to leverage themselves right back into power; since Potter disappeared and the rest of _Dumbledore’s Army_ were left to try and pick up the pieces. 

As much as they might have had the heft of money and connections, if any family even _distantly_ affiliated with the Dark Lord wanted to get anything done, ideally it was with the thin veneer of approval from one of the light, bright, and holier-than-thou remnants of the Order of the Phoenix. Even Draco had accepted that in order to achieve his goals he needed to play nicely with the victors of the war, though in practice, in the aftermath, they were anything but—set aside as the machinery of wizarding class culture crunched through delicate notions of morality and ethics like grist to the mill. They were victors in name only, nothing more. 

And so they danced—a compliment here, a polite inquiry there—and underneath it all the same simmering resentment and disagreements as always. Chang and Longbottom joined Granger and Weasley, and Draco’s teeth were on edge until Theo—always observant—slipped in beside Pansy and evened their odds.

“Draco, what a lovely evening, you’ve really outdone yourself.” 

He stood to grace Granger with distant air-kisses, and offered his hand to Weasley and Longbottom. “You’re too kind, Hermione, it’s just the same little get-together I always seem to manage. Thank you for coming,” he opened his arms in an encompassing gesture. “It’s always such a pleasure to have you all.”

A muscle in Weasley’s jaw clenched, as usual, when Draco indulged in faux-modesty in the midst of the splendour of one of his parties. As if on cue, a neatly uniformed waiter arrived with a silver tray of crystal champagne flutes, their bubbles shimmering and glinting like fairy-dust. Draco waited until the rest of them had glasses in hand before taking his own, and holding it up in a toast. 

“To old friends,” he looked toward Pansy, Theo, and Blaise. “And to new ones,” he slid his eyes to the tense group to his right. 

They all drank, and it was Granger who brought the conversation back round to Draco’s fight night, of course. “I couldn’t help but overhear you talking about a duel?”

Thank Merlin for predictable moralists. “I was, I wonder if you’ve heard of them—they call them Dog Fights. You might not approve, they’re not exactly legal.”

Granger looked appalled, she obviously _was_ familiar with the concept. Weasley though, had something in his eyes that Draco recognised—most of them had it, after the war. One way or another, it changed them all. They all had to do things to survive, and not all of it was pretty.

“I was just telling Blaise and Pansy about it, the final blow. One of the duellists used a curse called _Sectumsempra_. It’s an unusual curse, one my Godfather crafted himself—the nasty bastard.” Draco paused for effect, carefully arranging his expression to hide the unfettered glee filling him like the bubbles of champagne he sipped at. “I haven’t seen it used in, well, _years_. Not since before the war, I think.”

And they knew. They _knew_. Twin expressions of horror faced him. Despite the fact Weasley and Granger tried to hide it, both of them were stunned into silence. Blaise and Theo glanced at each other, confused—clearly aware of the fact a conversational bomb had just been dropped, but ignorant of the facts. But Pansy’s eyes lit up with understanding, her carefully painted lips parted just enough for a shocked inhalation. She had seen Draco in the aftermath of that curse, had sat next to his bed in the infirmary holding back tears and swearing she’d feed Potter to her father’s hunting dogs if she ever got the chance. She had followed through on the promise, bless her, offering up Potter to the Dark Lord himself in front of the whole bloody school. The Sorting Hat had been right, Draco had made his real friends in Slytherin. 

Draco breathed it in, the impact of it. When he was a child he had loved to practice levitating the smooth white stones from the shore of the lake on the grounds into the centre of the water, holding them firm and steady until he decided to drop them into the glassy black stillness, and watch the ripples flow across the expanse. He’d never had incidents of accidental magic, not when he could practice with his lake. It had been a long time since he had held one of those white stones aloft with his burgeoning magic, but watching the knowledge that _he_ had found Potter tear through Granger and Weasley reminded him of the simple pleasure of cause and effect, and knowing his own power. 

A waiter appeared at his elbow, whispered in his ear.

“Lovely to see you all, as ever, but I must dash. The Minister for Defence is asking for me.” Draco tilted his glass toward them, an ironic toast, and turned to walk away, savouring the screaming silence he left behind him. It wouldn’t be long until _they_ came to _him_.

  


* * *

  


“Master Malfoy, you is having uninvited guests. Sisley has put them in the Blue Parlour.” His house-elf waited patiently at his side for further instruction, her neat blue pillowcase embroidered with Draco’s personal monogram.

Draco sat back and sighed in pleasure. He had wondered how long it would take for the Gryffindor brigade to come knocking, but even he wouldn’t have put money on them cracking in less than twenty-four hours. He was glad he hadn’t taken Blaise up on his offer of a bet.

“Lovely. Serve tea, I’ll join them presently.” 

He waited a generous ten minutes before he left his office—he might have left them an hour, to punish their rudeness, if they weren’t so neatly falling into line with his plans—and listened to their muttered conversation as they waited for him. They were wise enough to keep their discussion discreet though, and didn’t let any information slip that Draco didn’t already know. It was just two of them, which surprised Draco; he’d half-expected a small army on his doorstep, hammering at the gates and demanding he return their golden boy to them. Weasley and Longbottom were the only ones, though, and they were even behaving themselves while he left them to their own devices. He found them both sitting stiffly on the uncomfortable chairs of the Blue Parlour.

“Good morning,” Draco drawled, “so nice of you both to drop in. And so unexpected, too.”

Longbottom almost rolled his eyes, but clearly caught himself. Old Augusta had trained him well enough in decorum, despite his childhood bumbling. But Weasley was quiet, and simply watched Draco as he sat and poured himself tea—ceylon and assam, the perfect morning blend—before he settled into a chair opposite the two of them.

“Well, I’d ask what I could do for you, but as we all know why you’re here, and you two aren’t inane enough to need to go through _all_ of the pleasantries, I’ll cut to the chase.” He sipped his tea, bright and fresh and light on his tongue. “Why only you two?”

“We thought it would be easier than if lots of us came. Less obvious.”

“Ah, look at you playing the old games, Weasley. You’d almost think your family had never fallen as far as they did; you seem to have an instinct for the intrigue of it all.”

Weasley grit his teeth, Draco could see the clenched muscle in his cheek, but he didn’t rise to the bait—he didn’t even flush with the ugly red anger of his teenage years. How far they had all come. 

It was Longbottom who soldiered on in the face of Draco’s antagonism. “Last night—what you said—about the duel, about… that curse.”

Draco cut him off. “Yes, yes. I know why you’re here, no need to dance around the subject. The man I saw win that fight was wearing a Glamour, a strong one—it stood up under significant and sustained curse damage, as well as physical blows.” He ignored Longbottom’s wince. “But at the end, I got a proper look at him, and I recognised his eyes. Perhaps they didn’t bother with changing them as most of the audience isn’t close enough to see—and I imagine they thought the odds of someone who knew him attending their events was… slim to none.”

Weasley was silent, but the look in his eyes was desperate. Like a drowning man catching sight of land, or a potions addict when they see the glint of a discarded coin on the dirty cobbles of Knockturn. The kind of desperation that made men do dangerous things. 

“Was it him, then?” Neville paused, and then asked the question they all knew had been the purpose of this visit. “Was it Harry?”

Draco set his cup and saucer on the tray and leaned back in his chair. “Yes, I’m sure of it.”

There was no going back now. He had taken the step he had been mulling over since he first realised that he had once again been served Harry Potter on a silver platter to do with as he wished. Draco could have left Potter, fighting for his life every fortnight. Draco could have indulged himself in watching every duel; every punch and kick and bite; every bruise and broken bone; every savage lash of that lightning-touched magic. He could have gone about his life with the secret pleasure of knowing Potter had _lost_ ; that Draco had finally bested him; Draco had survived and thrived after a war that should have obliterated him. 

But no. Much like the last time he had been presented with Potter’s battered and bruised face, Draco found himself diverting onto a path he hadn’t planned on taking. But Draco had learned, after Voldemort, that his own instinct for the path less taken was one that served him well; it had carried him through a war, through trials, through the blistering and painful re-entry into civilised society, it had carried him through his father’s death and his mother’s grief, and it had carried him to this moment. 


	4. Cruelty

It was October before Draco received another invitation; gold ink on black stationary, accompanied by another lethal little blade and no mention of the destination. He knew what to expect now. If Potter—Conrí—was fighting tonight, then Draco had a plan. 

But the Portkey only took him to the London departure lounge for International Magical Travel, where another gambling chip waited to take him on to his secondary destination. Despite all of the secrecy, a generous handful of Galleons to the handler waiting for him was enough to loosen his tongue. Greece.

After the extended vortex of international travel, Draco found himself standing at the entrance to an honest-to-Merlin amphitheatre—built of stone so old it was worn soft with the tread of crowds for a thousand years. The privacy and Muggle-repelling wards must have been incredibly hard to lay over such a large space; it felt huge. The scent of wild thyme and pine sat heavy on the air, and despite the late month there was a lingering warmth. Draco wondered where they were, exactly. 

The Greeks might have used it for sport, offerings of well-honed muscle and effort to a pantheon of mercurial gods and goddesses. But the Romans, they used their amphitheatres for the same purpose Draco was here for tonight; after sweeping aside the ancient Greek city states and with it their gentler performances. How many gladiators had fallen here, he wondered, under their control. How many wild beasts were loosed within the boundaries of the arena, only to be hunted for the pleasure of the bloodthirsty crowds? Were the elegant folds of Draco’s formal robes like the togas of the past? Did the Romans hold their own special magical tournaments, or did they throw wizards and Muggles in together to fight?

Draco settled on his seat. No leather upholstery tonight, just a rustic sheepskin against the hard stone of the front row; it served only to enhance the timeless feeling of the night. The Compere entered the ring, his Sonorus lifting his voice so those at the highest steps of the semi-circular stone seating that embraced the arena could hear him. It was strange, to sit so close, but to feel the breeze on his face. Every other fight night Draco had attended had been held inside, enclosed, and somehow removed from reality. If he had been inclined, Draco could have pretended it was all a show. He could have pretended that each fight was simply a performance, a clever piece of theatre. But here, with the scent of foreign soil in his nose and the sound of cicadas whirring above the hungry noise of the waiting crowd, Draco couldn’t deny the truth of it all. 

“I hope you’re all enjoying the Peloponnesian air, and that you’ve come with an _appetite_ because I have got a feast for you tonight! First we have a bout between Veela and Werewolf; by land or by air, who will prevail?”

There were no wands in that fight, but it was no less brutal for it. Draco summoned one of the trademark grey-uniformed staff and soon a glass of Nymph-brewed Ouzo—cloudy and ice-cold—was in his hand. He sipped, and watched, and waited.

He might not have been particularly interested in the opening bouts, but they provided food for thought. On the front row of the ancient theatre, the untrimmed sheepskin soft and comfortable beneath him, Draco watched the fighting and listened to the baying crowd around him and wondered at the nature of humans. Surely, a millennium ago, men and women stood screaming in this very place—watching wrestling or athletics or gladiatorial games. Bread and circuses. And blood. The simple but apparently perennial lure for the dark side of otherwise obedient citizens, the outlet for any foment of rebellion.

Draco liked it, too. He was enjoying his night. He might not care about watching these strangers fighting and dying, but he _did_ care about seeing Potter win again. Because he _would_ win, Draco knew it—Potter didn’t have it in him to lose. Not back when they were schoolchildren, not in the face of Lord Voldemort’s roiling fury, and not now after three years of _this_. 

What did that say about the man? To be in possession of that kind of resolve, that kind of survival instinct, to have the kind of power that not only wins fight after fight after fight, but that allows a wizard to stay sane—to still have his magic answer his call. Draco had been taught from birth about the importance of determination, of the essential nature of being the best. Slytherin had only honed that edge; the Hogwarts house that chose those destined for greatness, those ambitious enough to take their talents and turn them to excellence. Potter knew all about survival, but what did he know of ambition? Draco savoured the aniseed sharpness of his drink and, not for the first time, wondered what he could achieve if he were the one directing all of Potter’s power and determination, putting it into harness and driving it forward with purpose. 

Once the second bout was cleared up—it had been a particularly nasty brawl, five wandless men all in the arena together with a variety of antiquated weapons, inspired by their historic surroundings, no doubt—the Compere returned. The audience was screaming now, betting amongst themselves, standing and pushing each other. Desperate to get the best view of the fight, to smell it, to taste it, to feel the heat of the curses, the wet splatter of blood. The Compere paused, his ridiculous curling moustache twitched with barely suppressed excitement in the face of the frenzy of anticipation, and his eyes glinted with cruelty. “What a bout, my friends, what a bout! I’m positive it has served as the perfect warm up for this—our final fight of the night, and a dueller _truly_ worthy of this arena—our very own Nemean games!”

And Draco knew, then, it would be Potter. It would happen tonight.

“Blake Conrí!” The Compere dragged out the final syllable into a rising shout that served only to whip the crowd even higher; once again they stamped their feet in the rhythmic beat that heralded his entrance to the ring, like some kind of furious royal fanfare.

That now-familiar sandy hair and rangy figure emerged from the stone arches at the rear of the arena, flanked by the ghostly wolves that left no footprints in the sand—there must have been holding rooms back there. For a moment Draco imagined the make-up artists and costumiers of a theatrical production, then wondered at what harsh preparations the fighters went through behind those ancient wings before appearing before their audience. Potter wore his false body with ease, tucking lank, over-long hair behind his ear as he once again stood casually on his side of the ring; as though he was simply waiting for the Knight Bus, not for the signal to fight for his life.

“And tonight our Champion will be going up against a local contender—Heracles Adamos!”

Draco couldn’t help but snort in derision; the pseudonyms were becoming a little overdone. The Black Wolf King and Heracles himself in a fight to the death in Greece—it was almost comic. Adamos was big, with broad shoulders and thick waist lending him the air of immovable mass; even his fists looked huge. But for this duel, they were both given wands; so their difference in body weight wouldn’t be the deciding factor. It would be a game of speed and imagination, a test of who was the most fearless. 

Adamos slapped at his own chest, and shouted to the night sky, working himself up into an adrenaline-washed high. Draco sneered at the dramatics, but felt a moment of morbid curiosity; what if this blustering, muscle-bound opponent turned out to be a match for Potter? It would be deeply inconvenient if Adamos actually beat him. But Draco shrugged off his annoyance-tinged doubt when Conrí’s only response to his opposition’s ridiculous warm up was to simply roll his head from side to side, to set his shoulders, solid and steady. It didn’t matter who he faced. Conrí—Potter—wasn’t so simple a man to best. 

The Compere began to disappear when the wands appeared, he slowly faded into translucence, but his voice still filled the air before he escaped to safety entirely. “I leave you now, to fight, in three...two... _one!_ ”

Again, the fight began swiftly—but brutally, there was no pause to circle and spar—though this time Potter’s opponent gave him more of a run for his money than any other Draco had seen. Adamos’ magic was heavy and carried the heft of the wizard himself, his curses landed like punches when Conrí failed to block or dodge them—his Crucio actually dragged a scream from Potter’s mouth. It was the first time Draco had heard him cry out in pain in any of the duels he’d seen so far, and the sound of it echoed around the arena. It didn’t subdue him for long; with his next breath Conrí returned his own Crucio and Draco sat forward, pleased, but at the very moment that Adamos dropped to one knee under the weight of the pain, two more men entered the ring from doors hidden in the shadowed stone arches on either side of the ring.

“I have something spicy to warm you all up on this cool autumn night,” came the Compere’s voice, rippling over the stands. “No loyalties have been assigned—Adamos or Conrí—our little helpers can pick their own side!” 

The new arrivals immediately ranged themselves on either side of Adamos. Conrí was the unbeaten man, they would need to have numbers against him to win, and they probably both preferred their odds taking on Adamos themselves later. He was capable and strong, and his wandwork was surprisingly delicate, but they were right to see him as the second most deadly threat to their survival. Draco focused his attention on Potter as he turned against the trio now standing against him. He recognised almost all of the curses Potter used; some of them were so basic that a Hogwarts first year could pull them off, but not with the strength or the barbaric application that Potter put them to.

Draco had to admit to himself, he was impressed. Conrí cast a simple Incendio that blistered and boiled the eyes of his first opponent; he fell wailing to the floor, hands hovering over his smoking, ruined face. Next was a perfectly pronounced Wingardium Leviosa that threw sand into the second man’s face, distracting him enough for Potter to launch a kick to his jaw that left it hanging crookedly, blood drooling from his split mouth, and a tooth dangling by a fine thread of pink tissue beneath his top lip. Two more competitors raced into the fray, loosed from whatever backstage cell they had been held in; promised that to win was to live.

That was when Potter began to throw darker spells. He used the curses they were taught to defend against at Hogwarts, and some they hadn't even had documented and chained down in the Restricted Section. These were curses that would earn you a one-way trip to Azkaban; the curses that Draco knew—from experience—that you had to _mean_. Through it all Conrí danced between the group of men determinedly fighting him, moving with all of the speed and dexterity he used to utilise on a broom. Draco felt a dark curl of pleasure as he watched, and despite the odds, a supreme confidence in the outcome of the fight. 

The first one to fall and not get up was a short, dark-haired wizard who cast a nasty Disintegration curse which Conrí had dodged with a hairsbreadth to spare. A Sectumsempra took him down—Draco held his breath as Potter shouted the incantation—and his compatriot slipped in the bloody sludge around his butchered body as he ran from Conrí’s single-minded advance. Conrí cast the Bone-Breaker curse at his back which put him down too; the man’s legs twitched wildly, his spine and ribs exposed white and shiny to the night, before his face fell into the dirt and he finally stilled.

The crowd screamed ever louder around Draco, each curse and grievous injury only taking them higher into the fever of bloodlust that had been building since the first fight of the night. Draco knew his own breathing was coming faster, an empathetic adrenaline rush flooding his body with every move Potter made, and the sheer pleasure of watching such unrestrained ferocity was as exciting and breathtaking as flying, or fucking.

But then Potter took a Bombarda straight to the chest and the impact sent him flying backwards. He dropped heavily to the floor, clutching at his chest as gore stained his tattered tunic, and Draco’s blood ran cold. Potter had been distracted as he checked to confirm that the man he had just killed wasn’t going to get back up, and Adamos had taken advantage of that split-second of inattention, comfortable in the knowledge the remaining fighters wouldn’t turn on him until Conrí was firmly out of the picture. Draco’s stomach clenched, and for the first time that night his steady confidence in the outcome of the fight truly wavered.

Adamos turned to the crowd, an ugly grin on his face as he bathed in the howls and screams that erupted from the spectators; all so sure of their bets that this sudden turn of luck for Conrí might spell ruin for them. Money was already changing hands, new wagers were being shouted across the arena. Everyone loved a champion, but they loved to see the mighty fall just as much—or more. 

Draco stared past Adamos, though, to where Potter had dragged himself up onto his knees. He was coughing up blood, and there was frothy red spittle on his lips, splattering down his chin; his lungs must have been damaged. No fucking wonder, Adamos could have blown a hole in the stone enclosure of the arena with that spell. But Potter, stronger than stone, lifted one arm and wordlessly flicked his wand at his opponent—the crowd caught sight too, and in the sudden, shocking, silence Draco heard the crack of Adamos’ knees breaking like a stone thrown into an ice-covered pond. 

The alien quiet of the arena was filled with Adamos’ agonised screaming as he writhed on the floor, clutching at his shattered legs as he curled into the foetal position; he looked small all of a sudden. Potter lifted himself with difficulty from all fours up onto one knee and cast a simple Praefoca on his opponent—between one breath and the next Adamos was still and silent. Potter’s spell had snuffed him out like a candle. 

The crowd was still silent, and Draco could hear Conrí’s laboured breathing rattling wetly from his seat near the action. Potter slumped where he knelt, his shoulders curling in, his head tipping down toward his chest. He turned his wand on himself, and muttered so quietly Draco couldn’t pick up what spell he cast, but the pained wheeze he let out when the ruined skin of his chest began to knit back together implied a decidedly basic healing charm. From his knees, Potter cast the Smothering hex again on each of the remaining injured men around him, a sweep of soundless breath stolen away. He had to; the fights only ended when one combatant alone was left alive. Five dead wizards lay around Potter—they had all been quick and fierce and desperate, and none of them had been enough to overcome Potter’s will to survive. Potter heaved himself to his feet; he was the last man, swaying slightly on the spot but still standing determinedly.

But not for long. Once again the usual uniformed enforcers entered the arena, wands already drawn, and Potter was neatly put down with a Stunner to the back before he could even turn to see them coming—Draco suspected they used some kind of Notice-Me-Not—they collared him with that strangely beautiful silver circlet, and too him away into the shadows. The corpses were left on the floor; they always were at the end. It was the last fight of the night, and the crowd liked to see the gory result of the night’s atrocities. It was the time to celebrate or commiserate over bets won and lost, to dissect the action, argue over tactics, or to simply relish the aftermath; though tonight there was a stunned hush over the crowds in the wake of Potter’s unexpected victory. 

Still, even that only lasted a few moments. Then the calls for bets to be paid started to ring out and everybody started moving. Draco left his drink behind by his seat, and moved through the crowd to hunt down the master of ceremonies of this dark little party. He found the Compere at the luxurious lounge that the _very important_ guests had retreated to, well out of the way of the uncivilised press of the not-so-important audience members. 

“Maestro, good evening. Another wonderful night’s entertainment—and in what a setting!” 

The Compere smiled, taken in by Draco’s insincere smile and obvious flattery. The shallow were always the easiest to manage. “Ah, you are too kind, Mr Malfoy, too kind.”

“Not at all, Julien—may I call you Julien?” The man’s eyes widened; Draco had needed to dig to find out the man’s real name, the Compere wasn’t the brains of the operation but he knew everyone who was, so he’d worked hard to cover his tracks. Draco relished the shift in power he saw in the man’s frightened eyes. “I’d like to ask a favour of you, seeing as we’re friends now—and as you so kindly promised when we first spoke. How did you put it? ‘Anything at all’ was it?”

“A favour?”

Draco smiled, and he knew it wasn’t friendly. “It’s a trifling thing. I’d like to meet tonight’s victor. I’ve been enjoying watching his fights, such a singular performer, isn’t he? I’d like to speak to the man himself, just for a moment or two.”

“You want to—? You can’t _meet him_. He’s still being healed. We don’t let _customers_ meet the merchandise. Who do you think you _are_?” He was spluttering; he hadn’t expected Draco.

Draco moved closer, invading the Compere’s personal space with his chin held high and his teeth bared. “I’m not just a _customer_ though, am I.” He lowered his voice, and the curl of his lip was instinctive when faced with the quivering jowls and self-interested anxiety wafting from the man in front of him. “You know who I am, Julien, and I know who _you_ are.” He reached out and made to brush imaginary lint from the man’s collar, pleased at the flinch. “I know where your son goes to school, and I know that your wife has to take Wolfsbane potion regularly—so _sad_ , did it happen during the war?”

The Compare was ashen-faced now. “What do you mean? My wife’s not— You don’t—” 

Draco cut him off. “I also know the head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.”

“I—”

“No, no, don’t worry Julien. There won’t be any need for me to talk to him, will there?” Draco knew his tone was as reassuring as a knife, and patted the man’s chest as he spoke. “No need at all, because I only ask a small favour, and it will be so easy for you to say yes—won’t it?”

The Compere gaped at him for a moment. No doubt it was going to be difficult for him to arrange—whoever ran these nights must have the strictest of security, otherwise they never would have managed to hold the rest of the combatants, never mind Potter. But he grit his teeth and nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

“Do.” Draco smiled, and watched him scurry off towards the business end of the amphitheatre. 

Another quiet and efficient waitress brought him a fresh glass of ouzo, but he didn’t drink it. It was entirely possible Julien had immediately gone running to his boss; it could be poisoned. And even if he hadn’t, Draco would need to have his wits about him for the next stage of his evening; more alcohol was best avoided. So he pretended to sip at his drink, and watched as golden coins and glinting opalescent bank-notes passed hands, bets and wagers busily fulfilled over iced glasses of exceptional intoxicants. He waited impatiently, ignoring the obvious glances from the Veela with the penchant for the bloody nights, glad when she flitted away with an unsuspecting newcomer with the most nouveau-riche taste in robes. It took nearly half an hour for the Compere to return—Draco had resorted to Vanishing his drink in sip-sized amounts—but then Julien was back at his side, panting slightly and sweating at his temples.

“Mr Malfoy,” his ingratiating tone from earlier had disappeared, and barely veiled fear and loathing now coloured every word. “If you would follow me. Discreetly.”

Draco curled his lip. “I’m never anything but, _Julien_.”

They must have used a subtle Notice-Me-Not on the route the Compere took, because none of the remaining spectators seemed to see them as Draco slipped out of the luxury bar area with him and skirted along the curving walls of the arena towards an arched doorway at the side of the stage area. Julien muttered a spell, or a password—too low for Draco to hear—and the heavy wooden door melted away into insubstantial vapour. They passed through from the blood and sea scented air of the arena into the dark, solid quiet behind the scenes.

The stone walls of the corridor were cool and smooth to the touch, and Draco ran his fingers along their time-worn surface as he followed Julien into the heart of the operation’s base. They came to a wide open room spanned by efficient but elegant arches that had held up the weight of the roof for a thousand years. Under that sweeping dome a veritable hive of activity was taking place; the grey-uniformed front-of-house staff mingled with the heavies who clearly managed the fighters—Draco recognised some of them from the end of bouts. Their work was quiet and quick; they moved boxes of carefully packed Portkeys, clinking crates of finely-blown glasses that all the drinks were served in, and the bodies. You couldn’t Vanish a body, not without a set destination; that’s why Vanishing Cabinets were so rare and so useful. The business of cleaning up an orgy of violence was strenuous, and nobody looked up as the Compere whisked him past them all, though Draco made no real attempt to hide himself. 

They passed into another stone corridor with heavy wooden doors dotted along its length, and Draco could feel the hum of wards around each doorway; prickly and aggressive. Each door had a piece of parchment stuck to it with a name and number on. More than half of them had been scratched out, there were no wards on _those_ cells anymore—no need. These festivals of brutality had a high rate of attrition and, not for the first time, Draco wondered how the organisers managed to populate their stable of fighters. They couldn’t all be enemies of the powerful, stolen away and left to rot. 

“Don’t worry about the wards, Mr Malfoy, they’re just a precaution—we mostly rely on them for our Beasts.” Draco sneered, even _he_ didn’t refer to Werewolves and Veelas that way anymore. And the Compere’s wife was one of them; Draco wondered how the man slept at night. “But the rest of our merchandise is safe. You won’t be at risk at all, Conrí is thoroughly de-clawed. There’s no danger to your person.”

“The collar?” Draco asked.

Julien’s smile was unpleasant, the twirl of his moustache hid a pinched mouth. “Yes. The torque, it’s Goblin-made; from the last war between us and them. They made them to nullify the connection between a wizard and his magic, it’s how they managed prisoners of war.”

Draco swallowed, appalled and fascinated at the concept in equal measures. “How interesting.”

“Isn’t it?” The Compere’s cruelty was apparently enough to loosen his tongue, despite Draco’s heavy-handed threats “I’ve never seen anything quite like it in all my days, it’s a frightening thing to see. You could put a wand in Conrí’s hands while he’s wearing it and he wouldn’t be able to cast a thing—and anything wandless, or even accidental, is simply out of the question. We’ve only got the one, sourced it specially for Conrí. Nasty as he is in a fight, this goes on and he’s as good as a Muggle.”

Something furious uncoiled inside of Draco at the notion of a wizard so profoundly cut off from his own magic—unleashed only to fight for his life. He had indulged himself in the idea that perhaps the men and women fighting and dying every week in the ring had somehow chosen their fate, or at least accepted it—like the gladiators he had read about as a child. Fighting not just for their lives but for glory and adulation. He hadn’t really believed it. But Potter, divorced from magic. It rankled, unexpectedly.

Julien stopped them outside the door at the very end of the corridor, they had saved Potter for the grand finale of the night. Of course he’d be in the last cell. “Here we are Mr Malfoy, if you’ll follow me.”

“If you think for one moment I want you in the room, you are quite mistaken.” Draco leveled the Compere with a glare.

Again, Julien grit his teeth to hold back his obvious anger, but whatever sharp words he wanted to throw at Draco were quickly swallowed down. Perhaps he did truly love his wife. “I’ll be outside the door when you’re ready to go. But make it quick—we’re packing up and won’t take all night about it. You can’t be caught in here with him, they’ll… Just be quick about it. Whatever it is you’re wanting with him.”

Draco didn’t grace his innuendo with a reply; as soon as the door was unlocked he swept inside with his nose in the air and his formal robes swirling around him. He slammed the door shut behind himself and immediately cast heavy-handed privacy spells; a simple Muffliatio just wouldn’t do. The cell was dark and cool, windowless. There wasn’t even a Lumos overhead; just a candle sitting in a tiny sconce to light the small stone space and the low canvas bed that Conrí lay on. That _Potter_ lay on. He was facing the wall, his back a painful curve, his arms folded protectively over his chest; he didn’t seem to respond to someone entering the room. Had they even healed him properly yet? 

Draco had heard, once, that you should always approach an angry, rabid dog side-on. So as not to appear threatening, so as not to offer up your vulnerable front. But how, he wondered—with Potter so close and so compromised—was one supposed to approach one that already knew your face, and had felt the kick of your boot. Head on, Draco decided. 

“I know who you are.” He said.

Potter was silent for a long moment before he spoke, voice tired. “I’m no-one.”

“You’re the Boy Who Lived. Twice, at that. And look at you now—letting these imbeciles treat you like a _dog_.” Draco sniffed. “Pathetic, really.” 

Potter rolled over, quick enough to startle Draco. His eyes were bright in that _stupid_ Glamoured face, and Draco wondered how anyone could have seen the furious set of Potter’s body and not recognised him. He was angry, maybe humiliated, he thought Draco was here just to gloat.

“Don’t you talk to me about pathetic—your father was a whipped beast under Voldemort, but there he was still panting for more scraps right till the end—even _Pettigrew_ had more spine. And he was never deprived of his magic, he could have done anything.” Potter sneered, and that altered face couldn’t hide the man beneath it. “But you’d come here and try to goad me? Get a grip and go tell your father.”

Head-on had worked. If there was one thing Draco knew about Potter, it was how to make him angry, at least that had remained a constant. “Yes, well, Father is dead now. Didn’t you hear? I suppose they don’t take the _Prophet_ for you in here. So, pathetic as he may have been, it was surprisingly simple to wipe _that_ particular stain from the family tree.”

Potter stilled. “It was?”

“Oh a little cold water, a little time and effort. Just like cleaning blood from good linens.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be the sort to get your hands dirty with cleaning up like that.”

Draco stifled his smirk; he had Potter on the hook now. It was amazing, really, that he was still so predictable—even in this new incarnation. “You’d be surprised at how adaptable I became during the war, and after. I can do all sorts of difficult things now.”

Potter stared at him, eyes flat and disbelieving. “Like murdering your own father?”

“Like breaking you out.”

“What.” And it wasn't even a question, the way Potter said it; heavy with cynicism and an absolute lack of trust.

“Surely you haven’t lost the ability to understand _English_ , have you? That clever little collar of theirs doesn’t inhibit your brain as well as your magic, does it?”

“Why the fuck would you want to help me?” 

“You’ve always been so self-centred, Potter. Why do you think this is about _you_?”

Potter just slowly looked around his cell in reply, a pointed look on that conjured face, before he levelled Draco with a stare.

Draco lifted his chin and curled his lip, the familiar coil of anger that Potter had never yet failed to elicit warming in his chest. “Your _friends_ asked for my help.”

Potter was silent and staring, confusion warring with anger in his eyes.

“Quite.” Draco paused and looked around the cell, before eyeing Potter critically, looking for any other physical impediments that might slow them down. “Are you able to stand, did they heal you?”

“‘I can stand and walk, yes.” That wasn’t an answer to Draco’s question.

“Right then.” Draco dipped into the pockets of his robe, and drew out the key to Potter’s magic-blocking torque. He had scoured his family inventories in order to find the right dealer for this kind of antiquity, but found them he had. The cost would have made most baulk, but Draco had neither the moral squeamishness nor the budgetary considerations for that, and had walked away from the exclusive showroom housed on the wizarding side of Bond Street with the key burning a hole in his pocket. Sotheby’s had long-ago leapt into making the most of the magical world’s collectors, and Draco’s Gringotts accountant was all too familiar with their Muggle-style invoicing now. “May I?”

Potter didn’t even bother to stand, just lifted his chin and watched with slitted eyes as Draco advanced on him. Draco was careful to avoid touching Potter’s skin, but this close he could see the bruises that had blossomed in the wake of his duel; the blood on his tattered shirt, the raw pink skin of his chest, left by an ill-cast and half-hearted healing charm. Perhaps they healed him up properly just before he fought, to keep him slow and pained in between—easier to manage during transport. 

The key slotted into the small gap where the intricate knots of the torque rested over Potter’s throat. The strange filigree of the key’s blade was a matched silver to the collar itself, and when Draco held it steadily in place in the tiny gap between the two ends of the torque the silver metals linked together with a soft glow. The graven runes of the torque lit in a racing thread of blue; the magic crackling against Draco’s fingertips was cold and sharp and alien, and he wondered what it had felt like for Potter, having to wear it frigid and heavy around his neck for all this time. Once the runes were fully lit, they began to move, flowing into a cursive script utterly unfamiliar to Draco’s well-informed eyes, and then the collar itself changed; hard metal became soft and pliable, drooping over Potter’s shoulders, and Draco had to grasp at it. He slowly stretched the torque open; even magically yielding, it still took strength to force it open enough that he could take it off Potter’s neck without scraping him. 

Despite Draco’s care, the removal of the collar revealed red marks on Potter’s throat and collar-bone where it had rested; left by weight and magic, grating against soft skin and his own magic. The collar and key went back into the same secure pocket of Draco’s robes; he had learned not to cast away unexpected discoveries, and this collar would be the perfect addition to his collection of antiquities.

Potter dropped his head and brought his fingers up to probe at the sore-looking marks around his neck. He didn’t flinch or make a noise, and Draco watched—lost in wondering at how much pain Potter could take these days, if this tolerance was new, or if he had always been like this; stoic in the face of suffering. He didn’t have quite that stoicism when Draco reached into another pocket of his very well tailored robes—wizarding space was _so_ hard to work in fine silk—and pulled silvery material out in a flow like water. 

“How did you get that?” Potter's voice was hard and dangerous, and Draco was acutely aware he had just unshackled him, and the rising scent of ozone reminded him that Potter’s magic was wild and and deep and unrestrained.

“Oh settle down. Your best friend gave it to me this morning.”

“What the fuck?”

“Indeed. Put it on, and stay close to me. Shouldn’t be too hard, hm? You got enough practice at school, didn’t you?”

Potter struggled to his feet, and when he grabbed at Draco’s handful of fabric he had a hard time drawing it over his shoulders, too. 

“Do you need healing?”

“No. Not by— No.”

“Fine, but if you drop dead on the way out, I’ll just take the cloak and leave your body.”

Potter didn’t reply, he simply tucked the cloak closed and drew the hood low over his face, disappearing entirely. If Draco couldn’t hear him, smell him, _feel_ the pressure of his magic so close, he wouldn’t know he was there at all. And outside of this cell nobody would notice those things. He cast a Disillusionment spell at Potter anyway, just to be sure. 

Draco knocked at the door, grinding his teeth at the necessity of it and ready to blast the door open himself if Julien took more than a moment to respond. But he didn’t need to; the Compere was clearly still behaving with the alacrity of the fearful, and Draco swept out of the room with Potter close on his heels. He paused to cast Memoria Captura to extract all of Julien’s memories before he erased them with a strong and thorough Obliviate. Draco shot an appraising glance at the man’s blank face; he probably couldn’t even remember his own name now, never mind the fact that Draco had stolen their prize fighter from under his nose. He herded the Compere into Potter’s empty cell, shut the door, and then strode down the corridor and away.

He heard nothing from Potter, but his Disillusionment spell hadn’t dulled the taste of his magic on the air, so he knew he was close as they moved into the central workspace again; the body-bags had disappeared, but there was a new case open on a long table. Full of wands, the ones they so graciously allowed their fighters to use for the duration of their desperate battles to survive. Draco recognised the one they had been giving to Potter to use during his duels and swiped it as they passed; he hadn’t managed to get Potter’s own wand from where it was still being held in the DMLE evidence lock-up before he came tonight—and they might not manage to get it back at all—so this would have to do. But once he touched his fingers to this wand, he had to bite back the wince it drew from him; this was the Dark Lord’s wand. The faint hum of residual magic felt just the same, Draco half-expected his left forearm to burn. He didn’t realise it had been taken; there had been a break-in at the war memorial museum a few years prior, but there had been nothing in the press about Voldemort’s _wand_ being taken. But then they would hardly want that getting out, would they? He slipped it into his pocket with a well-repressed shudder of revulsion before anyone noticed; he had always been light-fingered. 

That done, Draco followed the short corridor the Compere had first led him down, feeling the soft-worn stone under his fingertips till he reached the door. It wasn’t locked from the inside. They were back out in the open. The stands of the amphitheatre had emptied, and the bodies had disappeared from the ring, blood and gore swept neatly away. In the stillness of the night, salt and wild herbs were heavy on the air, and it almost felt peaceful; the violence of the night was already forgotten by silent stone.

The heavy door thudded dully behind him—Potter must have closed it—and Draco kept walking, through the theatron and out, away down the winding main street of the town—deserted at this time of the night—towards a bluff overlooking the dark glittering sea. He had long-since learned how to tell if he was being followed, and the streets and paths around him had been silent, but still Draco cast to ensure privacy before he spoke.

“Potter.”

Hands appeared, mid-air, and drew back the hood of the cloak; revealing Potter’s face bobbing against the dark expanse of sky and sea behind him. Draco reached into his robes and drew his last trick of the night; another Portkey—personally made this time, and untraceable by the Ministry _or_ the gangsters who had been running the Dog Fights—and held it out between them. Potter’s eyes were sharp and wide, flicking from Draco’s face to the golden necklace he was holding. Perhaps he should have used something slightly less like the collar Potter had been forced to wear. Draco shrugged in the face of Potter’s suspicion. 

“Take it or leave it, I’m going home and you can come with me or stay here. Either way, I’ve done my bit.”

“I don’t even have a wand.”

“I’m not even sure you need one, but I’ll give you this one, if you want it.” Draco pulled out the wand he had stolen on their way out. Potter snatched it out of his hand, fingering it as he held it at his side. It was a strange thing, Potter clutching at Voldemort’s wand like it was something precious, not cursed. Draco shrugged it off, distracted by the sight of Potter standing before him, armed. He could kill Draco right now, he could drop him into the waves and walk away into the night, and nobody would know. A sizzle of excitement he hadn’t felt in years sang in Draco’s blood. “Well?”

Potter paused, and it was only a moment but it stretched uncomfortably, and for the space of a heartbeat Draco doubted. Then Potter reached out and took hold of the Portkey, but his fingers were shaking, so Draco adjusted his grip, holding Potter’s hand around the golden metal to hold him steady—to make sure he didn’t run away—and whispered the activation spell. The crush of magic around them, twisting space and dragging them through the spinning vortex, wasn’t enough to distract Draco from the stare Potter levelled him with—steady even as their atoms swirled around them in disarray.


	5. Mercy

The Manor was silent when they arrived in the foyer; no sound of waves, no scent of salt in the air, just the still quietude of marble and stone and silk and the gardens beyond. Sisley was waiting for them, her house-elf magic alerting her to her master’s return almost before his feet hit the ground. Potter finally looked away from Draco's face, and his jaw clenched as he took in his surroundings. Draco braced himself for an outburst and loosened his grip on Potter’s still-shaking hand around the Portkey. 

Quick as a serpent—just like in the fighting arena—Potter moved, and Draco found himself slammed against the tapestry-covered stone wall with Potter’s forearm at this throat and his wand-hand crushed against his own chest. Potter seemed to have dropped the wand Draco had stolen for him; Draco saw it sitting on the black and white tiles of the entry hall, inert wood without the touch of a wizard. But Draco was acutely aware that Potter didn’t even _need_ a wand. He could curse Draco right now—he could probably do it wordlessly, too. Potter leant his weight forward, and Draco could smell the blood on him, the sweat and the bonfire smoke of his magic, and he idly thought that Potter wouldn’t even need a spell to kill him now. He could just press forward a little more, and watch as Draco choked.

Draco’s cock was half-hard and aching in his neatly tailored trousers.

“I thought that Bombarda injured you,” he said.

“As you said, not enough to stop my _brain_ working. What do you want, Malfoy?”

“A great many things, Potter. But right now? I want to show you to your rooms.”

Potter’s frown was fierce. “What the fuck?”

“Eloquent.”

“Is this about the life debt? Because—”

“Oh, we can say it’s about that, if it makes you feel better about things.” With that Draco pushed Potter away; slow, but firm, and fully aware that if Potter didn’t want to move, he wouldn’t.

Potter opened his mouth as if to speak, but was seized with a sudden hacking cough. His hand came away from his face shiny and red, and there was blood on his mouth, darker than the petal pink of his lips. His whole body was shaking now, and he held himself stiffly; shoulder uneven, his left arm unconsciously cradling his chest. Before Draco could reach out, Potter collapsed to the floor with a gurgling sigh.

Draco sighed, eyeing the pulse at Potter’s red-raw jugular; alive. 

“Sisley, take our guest upstairs, if you will.”

“Yes, Master Draco. The Unicorn suite, or the green rooms?”

“The Unicorn suite, I think. Rather suits our new guest, doesn’t it?”

“Sisley couldn’t say, Master Draco.”

With a snap of her over-long fingers, she and Potter disappeared, and Draco climbed the stairs to the rooms he had sent them to. Sisley had done all of the grunt work; Potter was carefully laid out on the middle of the sizable bed that dominated the bedroom. Despite his injuries and that smallness that comes with being unconscious, Potter took up space. He was bigger than Draco remembered—he’d still been just a boy when he had ended the war, when he had tried to stand against the tide of apathy and _tradition_ that swallowed up all attempts at reform in its wake. But now, even with his arms instinctively wrapped around himself, protecting his injured chest, Potter filled the bed. Broad shoulders, long legs, a Glamoured mess of sandy hair, and that _magic_ of his—Draco could feel it in the air around him—seeking and testing, hot and electric in the stately coolness of the rooms.

Sisley had arranged a nursing station beside the bed; crisp white cotton over a mahogany table, neatly laid out with a crystal pitcher of cold water, frosted with condensation. Beside it, Draco’s personal potions cabinet; spelled to summon from the collection in his lab, and the talismans his family had collected over the generations; imbued with old magic—some dark, some light, some forgotten entirely but for Draco’s own instinctual draw to them. 

Draco knew that whatever damage had finally laid Potter low on the tiles of his entrance hall must have been extensive, and he wondered how Potter had managed to walk out of that arena, how he had managed to stand and stare at Draco, subjecting him to that studied assessment beside the whispering ocean. But he couldn’t call a Healer, not even the private practice he usually trusted with his own care. The temptation would be too great, even for the most discreet Healer, to share the news of Potter’s return. Whether they treated it like the return of a threat to the stability of wizarding society, or the hero coming home to protect the innocent, it didn’t matter. The news must not break until Draco was ready for it. Potter’s little friends might think they had control of the situation, but they had made the grave error of allowing Draco to retrieve him alone, to bring him back to the Manor, to let Draco nestle Potter in the heart of his power and control. This would play out by Draco’s rules, or not at all. He could already imagine the look on Granger’s face when she realised her mistake. 

Draco was alone with Potter, and he stood by the bed looking at every inch of him. The clothes he wore were clean but basic. A dun-brown tunic and loose trousers—no buttons, no laces, no metal—safe for Potter and anyone handling him, too. Someone had Scourgified whatever blood and gore had been spilt during the duel, but not bothered mending the tattered hole in the front, and it didn’t look like they’d cared to spend any time on healing either—Potter was lucky he’d had time to cast on himself in the ring, otherwise his chest might still have been a gaping mess of torn skin and muscle. As it was, the skin across his sternum and pectorals was a pale, shiny pink; it looked fragile, like a too-hard press of Draco’s fingers might tear it like a petal. A basic field-medic spell then, enough to hold a witch or wizard together until they were delivered to a proper hospital. Draco wondered how much of this slapdash approach to staying whole Potter had been subjected to during his time as a fighter. He swallowed down the rush of pity that thought prompted; it served no purpose.

Potter wasn’t going to the hospital now, either. But he was in capable hands; Draco might not be familiar with the treatment of Dragon Measles or Spattergroit, but curse damage and the aftermath of violence? Those he knew all too well. Draco hadn’t needed to get his hands dirty like this in a long time; not since his father died and Draco had needed to throw his weight around with acquaintances who had thought he would be easy prey in the wake of his _loss_. Not since the war, when Draco had had to heal his own mother, himself, any Death Eaters that were useful to him as the Dark Lord shamed the Malfoy family name in front of portraits of Draco’s ancestors with a thousand years of pride imbued into every stroke of paint. Trust Potter to undo Draco’s years of keeping himself away from this sort of work. The work of taking people apart and putting them back together again; it wasn’t so different from fixing clever old cabinetry.

First, he stripped away the Glamour still sitting heavily over Potter’s features. It took several repetitions of the Revealing Charm and the careful detangling of the spells that had managed to fuse with Potter’s magic simply from the duration and heavy-handed reapplications of the Glamour charms. They weren’t meant to be worn long-term like this; Draco supposed the people running the Dog Fights probably hadn’t ever bargained on one of their fighters surviving long enough for it to be a problem.

He took off Potter’s glasses and Vanished his clothes, casting an appraising eye over his naked body before he covered his bottom half with the sheets; he’d start with Potter’s chest, and then work his way through the rest of the injuries and half-healed scars he could see. It helped that Potter was already unconscious; it meant that Draco didn’t have to worry about managing the pain when he cast. He had to undo the sloppy Mending charm that Potter had used on himself—it wasn’t meant for human flesh—before he could heal the wound left by the Bombarda. As the weak tendrils of the charm dissolved under Draco’s wand, so did Potter’s chest. That fragile, just-healed skin reverted to the torn and gaping hole left by the curse he had taken right to the chest before finally felling his opponent. Draco could see the hint of white bone through the mess of skin and muscle and blood in the brief moment before he began the intricate wand-movements and incantation for the ancient Hǣlan charm. It was good for these kinds of injuries, deep and grievous—but it was primitive and brutal in its efficacy. Even unconscious, Potter writhed on the bed as his flesh first tore open and then endured the painful process of healing accelerated with magic. 

In St Mungo’s they might keep a patient in an induced coma and spread the healing out over several days so as not to put the body under undue stress, but Draco didn’t have the time for that. Every moment Potter spent weak and ineffectual was an unacceptable impediment to Draco’s plans, and looking at Potter, Draco knew he could take it even if other wizards might have crumbled under the procedure. With the worst of the, well, _crater_ was the best way to describe it, healing, Draco dropped a concentrated solution of Dittany onto the still-closing skin and subcutaneous layers over Potter’s sternum. That done, he placed a silver-wrought sun amulet in the dip between Potter’s pectorals, pleased when the delicate metal began to glow a warm orange, pulsing with the beat of the heart beneath it.

He moved to the foot of the bed and drew back the sheet covering Potter’s lower half to the top of his thighs, preserving what little modesty he had while lying unconscious and vulnerable at Draco’s wand point. He wondered for a moment if Potter would be co-operative if he woke, but dismissed the thought immediately—it was irrelevant, because he wasn’t awake. And if he did come to, Draco would simply Stupefy him. 

There were old scars and new littering Potter’s legs and feet; some white with age, others still pink and shiny, all of them a stark contrast against Potter’s brown skin and dark hair. Draco reached out to touch the raised edge of a particularly nasty-looking gouge on the inside of one muscled thigh; it looked like a clawmark—werewolf, maybe, or a spell or weapon that mimicked one. The contrast between the ropey scar tissue and the soft skin around it was strangely pleasing, and Draco stroked one fingertip along the length of the old wound. There was no healing to be done here, though, so, curiosity aside, he moved on to fresher injuries; a deep and painful-looking hematoma that swelled at Potter’s right knee, a bruise so profound it was almost black, tense and hard to the touch. It could break apart and clot in his veins left untreated, so Draco cast a simple Dissolving charm to it topically, and then moved to his potions box to put together Potter’s first dose of Blood Replenishing potion. 

Episkey took care of most of the superficial cuts and bruises that littered Potter’s arms and shoulders, but Draco took more time over the swollen knuckles of his hands. A Scanning spell revealed fractures in both of his hands; his knuckle bones and metacarpals were splintered and cracked from the impact of the brutal punches he had seen Potter land on his opponents. There were signs of healing; the ossification of older breaks lending new strength to the delicate bones. Draco cast carefully on both of his hands, then set them down to rest on the bed as the swelling slowly reduced, his body already responding to the healing, his magic aiding the process.

Draco had saved Potter’s face for last. It was the least injured, and the most discomfiting part of this process. Since stripping the Glamour from him, Draco had successfully avoided really looking at his face, until now. It was a strange thing, indeed. He hardly even saw Potter’s face in the papers anymore, unless it was around the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, or the pleading request for any information or sightings that Potter’s little gaggle of Gryffindor’s still placed in the _Prophet_ every six months. You couldn’t fault them for their dedication, Draco allowed, but their obstinate refusal to step a toe into the underbelly of the world to try and find their golden brother-in-arms smacked of a lack of both imagination and intelligence. Draco might have stumbled across Potter accidentally, but if he _had_ been looking for him with intent he knew he would have found him long before now.

He had to get closer, though, to cast the more delicate spells that the small muscles of the face required. He didn’t want to make a mistake with Potter’s famous face—it was what Draco was relying on for the next stage of his climb to the top. So he knelt on the bed beside Potter, leaning close to run his wand along the painful-looking split across the bridge of his nose—stifling the memory of breaking it himself, all those years ago. 

“Episke—” Draco’s incantation was cut off by a sudden unrelenting pressure around his throat. 

Potter had woken up, and between one breath and the next had grabbed at Draco’s neck and _squeezed_ with intent. Draco almost dropped his wand in surprise, and Potter held his right wrist in a bruising grip so he couldn’t move it much. Even if he was free to move his arm, Draco couldn’t cast anything useful without words, and he couldn’t muster more than a scratching gasp with the way Potter was expertly choking him. He didn’t bother to try and hit Potter either—or scratch or slap or push—Draco had seen him in the arena. There would be no point; Potter had faced worse and won every time. Draco would need to take a different tack to negotiate this particular change of tide.

“What are you doing?” Potter asked, anger and panic colouring his voice, his eyes glazed.

Draco resisted the urge to roll his eyes, despite his rapidly depleting oxygen, and brought his free hand to wrap carefully around the wrist of Potter’s hand at his throat. He didn’t try to pull it away, just slowly increased the pressure of his own grip, trying to draw Potter’s attention to the fact he was _strangling him_ so of course Draco couldn’t bloody explain himself. Blood rushed in Draco’s ears and he could hear his own pulse; it was slowing, and his careful calm was ebbing away too, replaced with a growing hunger for air that made him want to thrash and scrabble wildly to get away from the vice-like grip around his neck and Potter’s level stare that felt almost as restricting as his fingers. 

Potter blinked, and darted his eyes away from Draco’s face, scanning the room; the table of talismans and medicine beside them, down at his own barely-covered body, before those green eyes were back on him again. The fingers digging into his carotid arteries loosened a fraction, while those at his wrist clenched hard enough that Draco felt the fine bones of his wrist creak under the pressure of Potter’s hold. Draco heaved in great gulps of air, the pounding pressure in his head slowly releasing as he grit his teeth and held back the adrenaline-induced tremors in his limbs by simple force of will.

“I was,” Draco paused, horrified at the hoarse sound of his voice. “I _was_ healing your injuries, you intolerable fucking prick.”

“I was already healed.”

“Barely.”

“It was enough.”

“Don’t make me laugh. You dropped in a faint in the middle of my entrance hall, Potter, your chest was as good as tracing-parchment for all the good your bloody Reparo did.”

“It’s been enough until now.”

Draco twisted his wrist in Potter’s grip, felt the firm resistance he was met with, and swallowed hard. His Adam's apple moved against Potter’s palm, and he wondered what Potter was thinking. If Potter really had been stuck in the arena for the last three bloody years, was he even the same man that went into them on the first night? How much was left of the Potter that Draco had known?

“It’s a shame you woke up, actually. I was about to sort your nose out, now you’ll feel it.” Potter furrowed those dark brows, but stayed silent, so Draco continued. “If you’ll allow me to continue?”

For a long moment, Potter just watched him, until with aching slowness he released Draco’s wand-hand. He didn’t let go of his throat, though. Draco set his jaw, understanding. If Potter wanted to play that game, then Draco could perform his part too. He released his hold on Potter’s wrist and moved his grip to Potter’s chin, holding his head at a convenient angle. He was frankly stunned that Potter allowed it.

“Well, it’s that broken nose next. Take a breath.” 

Potter did no such thing, simply watched with those heavy eyes. Draco’s Episkey was a whisper between them, and despite the audible crunch of cartilage shifting Potter didn’t even wince. The tiniest twitch of his fingers at Draco’s throat was the only clue to the eye-watering pain of a broken nose being reset. Perhaps he used Occlumency to stifle it all. That had been Draco’s technique when he had fallen out of the Dark Lord’s favour, or more often than not, provoked his Aunt’s ire. Still, Potter was silent. 

“I prepared some potions for you, to complete the healing.” 

“Bathroom.”

Draco bit back a sneer at the non sequitur and nodded toward the door to the left of the bed. Potter let go of him entirely, and the sudden lack of firm pressure at his neck left Draco feeling off-balance and unsettled. Potter picked the amulet off of his chest, gave it a cursory glance, and then dropped it on the bedcovers before he stood. Naked, he wordlessly gestured towards the ornately carved double doors that led from the suite to the rest of the house and Draco heard the well-oiled click of the locks turning over. 

Draco stared. He wasn’t even angry, just stunned at the way the magic of the Manor had simply _allowed_ the presumption; faintly appalled at the implications of it, of his own lack of foresight. So he simply watched as Potter walked towards the bathroom, eyes tracing the slope of muscled shoulders, the wind of his spine as he moved, the taut power in his arse, and the lean speed of his legs. Wandless, he had commanded the Manor. Naked he had turned his back on Draco and his wand, as though he wasn’t concerned for his safety at all. And it wasn’t that Potter trusted him, _clearly_. The faint impressions of his fingertips in the soft skin of Draco’s throat were testament to that. He simply didn’t _care_. He didn’t see Draco as a threat. It should have rankled, but instead Draco found himself curious.

Potter hadn’t even bothered closing the door to the bathroom, so the sound of falling water was as clear as if Draco was in there with him. He could hear the sound of him pissing, too, before the toilet flushed and then the cadence of the water hitting the tiles in the shower changed; Potter was standing beneath the spray, now. Draco touched his throat and idly wondered what Potter’s little friends would think if he didn’t bother healing the bruises he could already feel blooming there. Potter’s fingerprints pressed into his flesh. They would probably approve, thinking Potter had every right to defend himself. But Draco had looked into those green eyes while his heart frantically beat and his lungs fluttered with starvation; Potter hadn’t been thinking of self defence, not for one moment of it.

Draco sat on the bed, collecting his thoughts. He hadn’t quite allowed for the ramifications of Potter’s tenure in the Dog Fights; no matter what kind of performance he put on during the fights themselves Draco had thought he’d find a whipped and trembling man in that cell. Potter was undoubtedly wounded, but like a trapped animal it seemed he was more willing to tear and bite at anyone who approached than to roll over and appreciate relief. Draco had been short-sighted, assuming the Potter he retrieved would be the same one that had been lost.

He stood and walked to the open door to the bathroom, leaned against the frame, and watched as Potter washed himself. Efficient and quick, Potter simply used the first soap that the taps offered—a creamy lather scented with a faint hint of almond—and briskly scrubbed at himself; his hair, his neck, his underarms, gentler with his genitals, his arm and legs and feet. He moved like he was on a timer, as though the water would run out before he was finished, and Draco noticed that no steam rose around him. Potter was using the cold water.

“Merlin, bit of a glutton for punishment, are you?” Silence from Potter. “Don’t hurry on my account.”

Soap sluiced down Potter’s body as he stood under the showerhead with his face upturned, eyes closed. Draco watched the tracery of white bubbles follow the lines of muscle and scar. Potter had grown into his adult body while he was gone; during the trials he still had the long-limbed awkwardness of a teenager. War-child or otherwise, one couldn’t speed up the indignity of adolescence. Potter had done it in the arena, and it showed in every line of his body. He wasn’t bulky, Draco noticed with an analytical eye, he probably hadn’t had his pick of food since he had been gone. But he was strong, and fast, and his body was hard and defined; dark skin, and dark hair, and coiled power.

Potter stepped out of the shower and dried himself off, towelling his hair while he pinned Draco with that heavy stare, uncaring of his nudity. He didn’t feel vulnerable with Draco there. Draco certainly hadn’t changed, not in the ways that mattered; he still knew what he knew, he still had wild ambition and the willingness to achieve his goals even if it took a blade to cut down opposition. Potter was the one that had changed. And not just the way he looked, or the way he moved.

Draco had never thought of Harry Potter as attractive before. He’d been skinny, knobbly, his eyes too big in a face too raw with wonder and grief and righteous anger. He’d been too _shallow_ , too simplistic. His ideals and binary view of the world had been too alien to Draco, who—even as a child—saw the world through a multifaceted lens, a thousand compound shades of grey and complexity. Draco’s budding appreciation for the broadening shoulders and husky voices of his classmates hadn’t managed to blind him to the fundamental differences between them. So he’d looked at Blaise instead of Potter, and ignored the frisson of heat down his spine whenever he provoked those green eyes to flash with rage across a room.

But now. Now Draco looked into Potter’s green eyes and saw the _understanding_ that Draco himself had grasped before he had even started school. Potter understood _fairness_ now, and what a myth it was. Potter had learned during the war what it really meant to fight for a cause; he’d even died for it, according to Draco’s mother. But Potter had spent the last three years fighting for his next breath, and the fact that the fire of survival hadn’t been snuffed out in that ring—the fact that Potter had been burned and tempered into this altogether sharper blade of a man—was fascinating. 

Draco had learned a lot about himself in the wake of the war, and about other people; he’d watched the way the lightest and brightest had contorted themselves to fit into the labyrinth left behind in lieu of the power vacuum of Dumbledore and Voldemort. He’d watched people like his father wriggle out of their professed loyalties, tidy their darkness away under the guise of weak wills and a predisposition to being swayed by more powerful wizards. Draco had learned that his own loyalty was finite; he had followed his father almost into ruin, and had swallowed hot shame at his performance in front of the Wizengamot, at the unforgivable fallibility of the man. 

His own war had shown Draco that his path through the world would have to be more carefully chosen than his father’s. He wouldn’t content himself with the petty interests of his forebears, obsessing over Muggleborn children and the Mobius loops of prophecy. Draco had raised his sights, had done what was necessary to bring himself to this moment. Draco would whisper in Potter's ear, and bask in the reflected glory of bringing the Boy Who Lived to power, while watching his own enemies crushed under Potter’s heel. He just needed to figure out what it would take for Potter to listen.

And now Draco saw Potter with new eyes, he recognised the depth Potter had gained as he drowned in violence and blood. And Draco was _magnetised_ to him. Attracted like a lodestone. The way Potter looked was almost incidental. But the way he _looked_.

He looked like violence, and Draco couldn’t help the way he stirred towards that. 

“I’m hungry.”

Draco blinked, looked up from the strangely elegant arch of Potter’s instep, and bit his tongue to hold back a sharp retort. Instead, he snapped his fingers and a moment later the pop of house-elf Apparition broke the silence.

“Sisley, I require some food for Mr Potter.” He looked at Potter, waiting for him to share a preference, but none was forthcoming. “Make up a platter for our guest.”

“At once, Master Draco.”

Potter looked at the space she had stood in with an odd expression, something mournful in his eyes. Draco turned and moved to the comfortable armchairs in front of the fireplace, there was a table there that Potter could have his meal at. And it would do well for Potter to see Draco giving him his back. Potter wasn’t the only one who could play gesture politics—though he may have been the only one in the room who wasn’t bluffing.

Sisley didn’t reappear, she was too well-mannered for that, but a carefully-arranged dish of food materialised on the intricately inlaid table Draco had intended for Potter’s supper. Tactful as always, she had included a generous spread of options for even the pickiest eater. Cuts of roast ham, chicken, and beef were neatly arranged along with slices of dark rye, seeded batch, and crisp-crusted white bread. There were fruit, and preserves, and fresh vegetables; steamed, and sauteed, and roasted. Wedges of cheese, stacks of thin crackers, and a dish of pale yellow butter. It was enough to feed half a dozen, but when Potter emerged from the bathroom, with a white towel wrapped around his waist, the way he looked at the food inclined Draco to think that tonight it would be demolished by one.

Potter sat opposite him and immediately began to fill a plate. He was clearly hungry; even magically-aided healing stole energy from a wizard’s reserves. Potter had been subjected to an endless cycle of injury and forced healing, and Draco wondered at the depths of power that had managed to sustain him for so long.

Between bites, Potter began his interrogation. “You said my friends had sent you. Where are they?”

“They’re at home, I presume. I arranged for them to come tomorrow morning.”

“Why did they ask you for help?” Potter somehow managed to wolf down his food without looking uncouth and Draco was reluctantly impressed. 

“Well, you could say I offered, actually.” Potter raised one disbelieving eyebrow. “I spotted you, Potter. And I told them that I had found you.”

Silence reigned. So Draco Summoned the healing tinctures he had arranged earlier and set them on Potter’s table. “You should take them.”

“Why?”

“Are you asking me to explain the workings of each potion?”

“Fuck off. No. Why did you offer?”

Draco couldn’t help the wry twist of his mouth, and didn’t bother trying to hide it. “It just seemed… like the right thing to do.”

He could hear the grind of Potter’s teeth from where he sat, and tried not to laugh. At least there was _something_ recognisable in the man. 

Potter’s attack on the food slowed. “Who else knows? Are you keeping me here? Am I to consider myself _held_?”

This time Draco did allow himself a sneer. “It’s not in the _Prophet_ , if that’s what you mean. And no, you can leave whenever you like. There are no locked doors in this house, except—” he lazily gestured toward the securely locked doors that would allow egress from the suite, “—for the ones _you_ have locked. Shall _I_ consider myself held?”

Potter sat back in his chair, legs spread wide and modesty barely preserved by the towel about his waist. Half-naked and just-healed, and he managed to look like a lost king lounging on his throne. His eyes flicked to the doors, then back to Draco and his lack of response told Draco everything he needed to know.

“Are we alone?” At Draco’s raised eyebrow, Potter curled his lip; Draco half expected him to growl. “Who else is in the house? Where are your parents? Your father?”

Potter must have forgotten, the injury to his chest was severe, and he had been unconscious for a while before he came round. Draco paused to think for a moment, and considered lying; the wisdom of leaving himself alone with Potter for so long before Weasley and Granger arrived the following morning felt misplaced in the face of Potter’s louche display of power and arrogance. But he doubted he would get away with dissimulation, so he discarded it as an ineffectual strategy.

“My mother is abroad.” Potter tilted his head, watching him, and Draco wasn’t sure whether to preen or to hide. “Lucius is dead.”

 _That_ caught Potter’s attention. “How did he die?” he asked.

“He had an accident; there’s a lake here, in the park.”

Potter narrowed his eyes. Apparently his ability to scent a lie on the air really _was_ better than it used to be. “Just you and I, then?”

Draco hummed in admission, and stood to leave; he had fulfilled his duties as host and it was time to retire from the intensity and abrasive magic that simmered in the air around Potter. But before he could turn toward the doors, Potter had grabbed at his wrist again and pulled him back to face him—Draco was discomfited to realise the Pavlovian response already tickling down his spine at the strength and entitlement of it.

“Where are you going?” Potter asked. 

“I was _joking_ when I asked if you were holding me captive, Potter. Do you remember those—jokes?”

“You didn’t eat.”

“What—no—I ate before I came to the arena.”

Potter pulled him closer, and Draco could feel the warmth of him; his magic fever bright and his skin clean. “I’m not going to hold you here.”

Draco looked pointedly at Potter’s firm grip on his arm. “Oh, really?”

“The house wouldn’t let me, I can feel it already; it’s very _loyal_ to you.”

Draco didn’t respond. He knew the Manor was his, he knew the very earth it sat upon could hear the pound of his heart and recognise his footsteps. But for Potter to know it? To intuit the intricacy of a magical home almost a thousand years old, to have the gall to push his own magic far enough to touch the boundaries of what the stone and mortar would allow? Internally Draco was reeling, but he just lifted his chin and questioned Potter with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m hungry.” Potter said, apropos of nothing.

“I’ll call for Sisley, she can bring more food.”

Potter didn’t soften his grasp on Draco’s arm, but he settled his other hand on his hip. It was heavy, and warm, and broad enough that his thumb rested above Draco’s pelvis and his fingers pressed into the dip of his spine. He leaned in and ran his nose along the edge of Draco’s cheekbone—and _fuck_ —bit at the hinge of his jaw.

“I don’t want food. I’m _hungry_.”

Draco’s wand was on the side table next to the chair he had been sitting on, firmly out of reach. The doors were locked, but Potter himself had admitted he couldn’t hold the Manor closed against its master. And despite the sting of his bite, and the heat of his breath against the tender skin under Draco’s ear, Potter didn’t move. 

Draco flashed back to the fencing lessons his mother had insisted upon in the summer of his second year at Hogwarts—corps-à-corps had earned him a stinging hex from his mentor. But Potter had never played by any rules; any he had managed to learn on his departure from whatever barbaric Muggles had raised him wouldn’t have served him well in the Dog Fights. So it appeared that Draco would have to shift his own playbook, and accept an altogether more close combat. He was nothing if not adaptable.

“How long has it been?” Draco asked, lowering his voice and tilting his head, giving Potter room. “Did they ever let you and the others… _fraternise_? People might have even paid extra for that, to watch. I know I would have.”

Potter moved as quickly here as he had in the ring, and his grip in Draco’s hair was firm enough to shock a startled gasp out of him. He had Draco by the waist and by his hair, pulling his spine into a taut bow, and exposing Draco’s throat to his mouth. Potter grazed those straight white teeth along the ridges of Draco’s Adam’s apple. He could bite down and tear through soft skin and cartilage if he wanted to, and there was nothing Draco could do about it. So he settled his hands on Potter’s shoulders; smoothing the twitch of the muscles there with a firm stroke, tangling his own fingers in Potter’s dark curls and tugging him closer still.

That was all the permission Potter had been waiting for, and he surged forward. His mouth was hot and wet at Draco’s neck, biting and sucking bruising kisses into the skin there. He held onto Draco’s hair, and tore at his shirt with his free hand. 

“Let me—” Draco began, but Potter’s patience was thin indeed; he Vanished Draco’s clothes wandlessly and grabbed again at his hip. 

Draco could feel the heavy press of Potter’s cock against his hip, and his own smeared against Potter’s crisp pubic hair, lightning bright sparks of sensation against his sensitive foreskin. He needed to wrest some level of control back, so he softened against Potter, draped his arms and slid his fingers into that dark hair; careful to drag his nails lightly across his scalp. He could feel the resulting shiver and smiled; sometimes the best attack was to open your own defences. Draco coaxed Potter’s face up from the hollow of his throat, and then he kissed him. Gently, at first, almost chaste; before Potter groaned deep in his chest and swept his tongue across Draco’s bottom lip.

He would be bruised in the morning, Draco could tell already. From Potter’s hand on his throat, and his mouth, too. Granger would be incandescent. Draco revelled in it, and rolled his hips to drag another of those sounds from Potter; so laconic since waking under Draco’s healing. This Potter was a different beast than the one he had known, before, but still that buzzing _need_ to antagonise him rose up in Draco; the risk was only fuel on the fire. So he dropped his hands from Potter’s tangled shower-damp hair to his hips, stroked along the sharp cut of his iliac crest, and put his hands on him. 

Potter’s cock was hot and twitched at the first touch of Draco’s curious fingers. He was so hard that his foreskin had already drawn back, so Draco rolled his cupped palm over the shiny-wet head of his cock and grinned at the shuddering gasp it provoked; Potter stealing the breath right from Draco’s mouth. He dipped one hand to cradle Potter’s balls, stroking and rolling and tugging them while he worked over his length with deliberately slow pulls. 

Draco whispered against Potter’s mouth—wandless, but not wordless, and hardly impressive as every boy from third year had known the charm—and his hand was slick. Potter’s mouth quirked against his, and his hips hitched forward and began a rhythmic thrust into the clasp of Draco’s hand. They were close enough that each forward push nudged Potter’s cockhead against the soft skin where Draco’s thigh met his hip. Potter was breathing heavily, but no more of those delicious groans passed his lips; he was silent. So Draco tightened his grip, pressed his fingers into Potter’s frenulum, and twisted meanly on the upstroke. He was rewarded with a shuddering gasp, and Potter grabbing at the meat of his arse and squeezing hard enough to bruise. 

Draco’s own cock throbbed, he hadn’t been this turned on by wanking off _someone else_ since he was a teenager. But he couldn’t help remembering the way Potter had looked during those fights, when he was Conrí, not Potter—when those green eyes were lit with the purity of survival and the savage victory so far beyond their petty childhood competitions. This man that stood against him, mouth hot and panting, had fed the bloodlust of the hungry crowds and made an art of winning. He had fed Draco’s own dark curiosity too, before he even recognised the set of those shoulders and the twist of his wrist as he cast. 

Potter’s breath was heavy and he bit at Draco’s mouth as he tensed suddenly, and then Draco’s hand was wet with Potter’s come and his own arousal surged in response. He kept stroking Potter's cock with slick and slippery fingers, dragging out Potter’s orgasm until he twitched with oversensitivity and grabbed at Draco’s hand to pull it away. Then he took a half-step back, enough to look Potter in the eye.

“Satisfied?” Draco asked.

Potter tilted his head, and looked down between them at Draco’s still-hard erection. Then he twisted Draco’s left hand up behind his back and grinned, unfriendly and devastatingly handsome. His thumb pressed into Draco’s forearm, right where the scarred remains of the Mark began, and Draco suppressed a shiver at that; Potter’s hand pressing into the ghost of Voldemort’s own hold over him. 

“No.”

It hurt—Potter could probably break his arm if he wanted to, if he just pushed a little harder, twisted a little more. Draco’s cock throbbed. But Potter didn’t increase the pressure on Draco’s wrist. Instead, he used his hold to manoeuvre Draco towards the bed—still rumpled from Potter’s abrupt departure from his healing—and then spun him before pushing him face down onto it. A hot flare of anger curled in Draco’s gut at the arrogance of it, but that only tangled with the aching desire he’d felt since he had first seen Potter wearing his own face again, driving him further into half-willing want. Nobody had treated Draco like this, not since he survived the war and learned to pick his fucks carefully and never, _ever_ , allowed them to overstep their position. 

Potter wasn’t just a fuck though. Draco hadn’t even considered that this might have been an option until he’d seen that hungry glint in sharp green eyes; he had planned to play the reluctant saviour, the grey square on the board. But Potter had disrupted everything—no change there, at least—and Draco was glad to glut himself on the new opportunity it presented him.

He was snapped out of his machinations when two slick fingers prodded at his hole, then pressed inside without reluctance or subtlety. Potter still held his right arm firmly behind his back, pressing Draco’s wrist between his shoulder blades with one hand while his other was busy ruthlessly fingering him open. Draco moaned, helpless under the onslaught and grasping at the sheet beneath him with his free hand in a desperate attempt to anchor himself. 

Potter pulled his fingers free with a dragging tug at Draco’s rim, and for a moment Draco simply panted while his arse clenched down on nothing. Then he heard the unmistakable sound of Potter spitting, and felt the warm slide of saliva dripping down his crack. Potter stepped closer behind him, the coarse hair on his legs catching and dragging against the back of Draco’s thighs as he knelt; face down and arse up, _waiting_.

When Potter failed to move in a timely manner, Draco arched his back and cast an angry glare over his shoulder—awkward angle be damned. But he found Potter entirely preoccupied with the sight of his own spit on Draco’s hole, so the expression was wasted. Draco clenched his arse instead, and watched as Potter’s pupils blew wide. He dropped his gaze and saw Potter’s cock, already hard again. 

“Was that it?” he asked, needling and sharp.

Those fingers dived back in; stretching him out for a moment before leaving him empty again, only now he was anointed with Potter’s spit on the inside. 

“I could Silencio you,” Potter said, still staring at Draco’s arse. “Only, I think I want to hear you scream.”

Draco set his jaw, grit his teeth, and promised himself silence. He might have resolved to make use of Potter, but if it were to work, he couldn’t simply roll over and beg for his cock.

“If you think the grubby little practice-fucks and tragic cell romances you’ve indulged yourself in will make you qualified to be anything other than _serviceable,_ then I have to inform you otherwise.”

Potter hummed noncommittally and tightened his grip on Draco’s wrist, then pressed his cock against Draco’s hole, big and blunt against his tender rim. He paused for a heartbeat—Draco held his breath as the first moment of being stretched open dragged into breath after breath of sparkling pain—and then Potter pushed in, strong and purposeful. Draco swallowed down a whine and the rising tide of panicked pleasure as he opened up, inch by inch, for Potter’s cock. His toes curled, and he dropped his forehead to the bedcovers, grinding his face into the cotton to distract himself from the delicious feeling of being split open on Potter’s cock.

Potter didn’t wait for Draco to adjust to the intrusion, pausing only to set his feet firmly, before he pulled back—the sundering drag of it enough to make Draco bite back a moan—and then drove forward again. Potter wasn’t noisy, his panting breath almost drowned out by the slap of their bodies meeting and the slick obscenity of his cock moving inside Draco as he rolled his hips and built a steady but brutal rhythm. If Draco hadn’t managed to take hold of the covers in a claw-like grip with his free hand, he would have been halfway across the bed.

Draco’s erection hung heavy between his legs, and he ached for friction that was just out of reach. Potter’s firm grip on his hip and the arm he kept twisted behind Draco’s back stopped Draco from lowering himself to the bed and rutting against the sheets as Potter thoroughly, expertly, _devastatingly_ reamed him. 

“It would be easy enough.” Potter said, and how the fuck could he keep his voice so level when his balls were slapping against Draco’s sensitive perineum with every powerful thrust of his hips. “I could just twist your arm a little more.” 

Potter’s thumb pressed into the tendon inside of Draco’s wrist, and _that_ dragged a gasp from him—Draco had almost got used to the stretch of his shoulder and the angle of his elbow, adequately distracted by the press of Potter’s cock. But that pin-point of pressure brought back into focus his vulnerability, the risk he was taking, the position he had yielded to Potter. Blood pounded in his ears, and the ache inside him intensified. It was another chance to struggle, to draw Potter on into a fight. Again, though, Draco remembered what he wanted. So instead of swinging back towards Potter’s face with the elbow of his free arm, he canted his hips up—half-dazzled by the way the new angle crushed his prostate against Potter’s cock—and turned his face so Potter could see his bitten lips and flushed cheeks.

“Thought you’d be past pigtail-pulling, or have you not glutted your dark side sufficiently in the arena?” Draco asked, and tilted his head to expose the Sectumsempra scar that licked up his throat and curled just over his chin. “Is that all you know how to do now?”

Soft body, hard words; and as expected, an instant reaction. Above him, Potter slowed, and the curl of his lip was half smile, half growl. “Are you pretending that my ‘dark side’ isn’t _exactly_ why you’re under me right now?”

He climbed onto the bed behind Draco, shifting him forward as he went, and knocked Draco’s knees wider with his own until they were pale brackets around his dark, scarred thighs. The new angle, the new _closeness_ , made the hair on the back of Draco’s neck stand up. So did the fingers Potter wove into his hair, cradling Draco’s crown and then slipping down to grip firmly at the nape of his neck. He pushed Draco down, and ground his hips against Draco’s arse—driving his cock deeper than before, a heavy weight inside of Draco. 

With what little movement now afforded by the new position, Draco turned and bit the sheet in a futile attempt to quieten the reckless sounds of his own hunger as it rose like fire in his belly. The heat of Potter above him only fuelled it, and the press of him, the bloody-minded, obstinate drive of his hips—it was like nothing Draco had ever felt before. He could feel Potter’s breath now, across his shoulders, and though he couldn’t see him, Draco imagined the way Potter’s head was lowered toward him. Bowing, that shaggy mess of dark curls hiding his face, as he fucked inexorably past all of Draco’s plans and expectations.

Sweat prickled at the base of his back, at his temples, at all of the places his skin met Potter’s. The cotton between Draco’s teeth was damp with his own saliva, his cock was drooling constantly, and his hole was wet with spit and lube and Potter’s precome. Idly, Draco wished for a breeze and the Manor—as ever—was obliging to his desires. One of the wide sash windows unlatched and slid open, just enough to admit a cool ribbon of air to the room, to catch on Draco’s sweat-damp skin. He shivered at the contrast of the autumn night and the heat of Potter’s skin, and then again at the way it made him clench around Potter’s cock; he was already becoming over-sensitive, and the driving press of every ridge against his prostate made his thighs tremble and try to close, to try to fend off the overwhelming assault on his senses. 

Potter was unyielding, though, and only pumped his hips harder; grunting with the effort. Draco released the sheet from his teeth, panting now, mouth wet and open with sighs and urgent gasps. All he could hear was the rush of his own blood and Potter’s guttural moans. Draco’s lips tingled, and he realised he was hyperventilating—his personal vow of quiet restricting him to shuddering breaths that didn’t quite fill his lungs, each intake of air knocked right out of him by the force of Potter’s savage thrusts. 

“I’ll keep going until you give it to me, Malfoy.” Potter ground out the words between his teeth. “I’ve learned lots about patience since you last saw me.”

For a moment, Draco had to stifle a bubble of hysterical laughter. Potter wasn’t lying; his pace was steady, his grip was firm. Draco already half-believed Potter could fuck like this for hours, waiting for the gap in Draco’s defence to open up, just like he had waited for each and every one of his opponents to reveal their weakness in the ring. Potter was patient enough to take a blow himself, if it meant he would deliver the killing stroke, and Draco was acutely aware that he had allowed Potter past every nominal defence—all in the expectation that he would fall neatly into Draco’s plans, and behave the way he used to. As Potter pressed Draco’s face harder into the bed, and slammed his hips forward hard enough to make Draco mewl—pathetic under the screaming maelstrom of sensation—Draco swallowed around the realisation that he had possibly miscalculated. 

Draco felt like he had been hovering on the edge of a dangerously encompassing orgasm since the first full stroke of Potter’s hardness inside of him, and he clung on with a tenuous grasp to his self control as Potter dangled him over the precipice. Not a single touch to his cock; not Potter’s hand, not the sheets, not even his own palm—Draco’s skin felt tight, his toes almost cramping from the curl of pleasure, and his hole was hot and throbbing. 

“Come on,” Potter urged, and Draco could _hear_ the arrogant curl of his lip. “You can do it, scream a little for me. I know you’re going to give in eventually, you never did win against me unless you cheated.”

“Fuck you,” Draco managed to snarl out around a rising moan. 

A pointed thrust was Potter’s only reply. So Draco arched his back and used what little leverage he had to hitch his hips back and grind into him, clenching rhythmically around the solid length inside. _That_ startled a gasp out of Potter, and Draco had a moment to revel in his brief supremacy before Potter pulled out—leaving him open and gasping and _empty_. Achingly, shockingly empty.

“That wasn’t a _suggestion_ to try and play me, Malfoy.” Potter said. And then he just waited. Waited while Draco squirmed on the bed, all too aware of the sight he must make; held down and sweaty, his hole twitching at the sudden lack, gaping and closing as Potter just fucking _watched_. 

Draco glared over his shoulder at him, but was hit with a sucker-punch of desire when he saw the look on Potter’s face.There was sweat at his temples, and the green of his eyes was almost subsumed with pupil, his lips were parted as he panted, and he looked like he had on that first night Draco had seen him in the arena—wild and powerful and sure of himself. He knew he had Draco right where he wanted him. So Draco closed his eyes and untangled his fingers from their grip on the bedcovers so he could take himself in hand and be done with it. 

Potter let go of Draco’s neck and grabbed at his elbow though, dragging his right arm behind his back to meet the other to hold both wrists firmly in one strong hand. Then he dragged Draco up onto his knees, wrapped his right arm around Draco’s throat and pinched meanly at his nipple, slowly increasing the pressure until Draco was gasping with the bright-sharp pain of it. Potter’s cock rested in the cleft of Draco’s arse; hard and sticky with lube and precome, and Draco might die—or kill—if he didn’t get it back inside him soon.

“You seem to be the one playing games, Potter. Not me.” He bit back on a whine as Potter twisted his fingers and the pressure on his nipple increased. “Just let me go now, if you’re not going to do anything useful.”

Potter leaned close, dipping his head to whisper into Draco’s ear, his breath hot. “I’m being very serious, Malfoy.” He murmured, and then he shifted his hips and drove himself home in one brutal thrust.

Draco couldn’t help it, he couldn’t help the hoarse shout it tore from him—suddenly full and stretched once more—and then Potter pulled out again, all the way until his cock just rested against Draco’s twitching hole, and Draco was gasping. Potter’s mouth was at his throat, lips soft and tongue wet, and then he filled Draco again, teeth biting down hard in perfect synchronism with his hips. Draco dropped his head back, resting it on Potter’s shoulder, and groaned. Each forward drive of Potter’s body bounced Draco on the bed, and only Potter’s firm hold of him kept him upright. Draco’s cock bounced too, slapping against his belly, throbbing and aching with need. 

“You fucking—” Draco couldn’t finish his sentence.

Potter loosened his teeth, licked over what could only be a mess of a bruise, and whispered hotly into Draco’s ear as he fucked and fucked and _fucked_ into him. 

“You recognised me that first night, didn’t you? I know you did.” Draco was silent, wrong-footed at the change in subject. “Why did you wait? Hmm? Did you like going home and thinking of me all locked up?” 

Draco writhed on Potter’s cock, pinned by his body and his words and for the first time in years he was unsure of what to say. 

“Or was it the _watching_ you liked?” Potter continued, relentless. “Just as hungry for blood as all the rest. Just as hungry to watch me as you’ve always been.” 

Another pause, and Draco couldn’t answer, not beyond the mindless noise spilling out of him as Potter pounded into him. 

And then Potter spoke again, and his voice was altogether darker. “You owe me, Malfoy. Months I was in there after you knew it was me. You owe me, and I’m going to collect. I saw enough from the scraps of newspapers they left lying about—I know what you’ve been doing. You’re going to help me.”

If Draco could have managed to formulate words at that point, he still wouldn’t have known what to say. Not when Potter lined himself up so fucking neatly with Draco’s hopes. Not when Draco couldn’t have _asked_ for a more perfect outcome. Not when even his ever-ticking clock of a mind slowed in the heavy suspension of time that his impending orgasm spun around him.

Potter slid his hand down Draco’s chest, abandoning his abused nipples and dragging his fingers through the trail of hair leading from his sternum to his pubic hair. Then he wrapped those fingers—those fingers that had cradled curses and magic so vibrant and dangerous it had dazzled Draco, those fingers that had gouged at eyes and curled into punches—around Draco’s straining erection. The first slow tug of his fist around Draco’s cock was the final blow; Draco had held himself together, _just_ , until then. But now, with Potter inside him, around him, and promising to fulfil all of Draco’s plans, Draco let himself give in to his body.

“Yes.”

Potter shuddered behind him, Draco had managed to surprise him. “Yes?” He asked.

Draco’s head lolled on Potter’s shoulder, and he turned so his mouth was under Potter’s ear when he answered, in a hiss. “ _Yes._ ”

Perhaps Potter had been waiting to give in, too, because with that one word it was as though Draco had let him free from his own personal leash. He closed his grip around Draco’s cock, dragging his foreskin back, thumbing at his frenulum, twisting his wrist as he thrust his hips and slammed deep. Draco _screamed_ at the dual sensation, and couldn’t even scrape together a shard of regret at breaking his promise to himself; not when his whole body trembled on the edge of release. Not when this was _winning_.

With his hands still held behind his back, Draco had nothing to cling to, nothing to anchor him. His fingers scrabbled uselessly at Potter’s chest, finding only slick sweat skin and tight muscle and no purchase at all. Potter was relentless, and Draco knew he was close—gulping in air like he was about to be submerged underwater, bracing himself for it. 

It was a particularly sly twist of Potter’s wrist that did it, that and a grinding roll of his hips against Draco’s arse—bruisingly deep—and Draco was coming. Hard enough his eyes rolled back, hard enough he shook and bowed in Potter’s grip, hard enough he felt outside of himself; even as every nerve ending in his body sang with the ecstatic agony of it. He might have howled, he might have whimpered—he was so far past awareness of anything so insignificant as the voice he gave to the roiling storm inside. 

Potter didn’t give him a moment’s respite; Draco’s cock still twitched and dribbled come, but Potter had the hot flat of his palm against Draco’s belly and he held Draco firmly against his own body as he ploughed on. His groans were almost growls, and the snap of his hips was unsparing; even as Draco gasped with post-orgasmic oversensitivity. If not for his unyielding grip, Draco would have fallen to the bed; instead he closed his eyes and panted as he took it and took it, every muscle still straining and tensing against the waves of sensation crushing over him. He was right to brace himself; he was drowning in his own body as Potter held him under and fucked him raw.

Distantly, over the rush of blood in his ears, he heard Potter speak. “I knew you would,” he murmured, rough as gravel and self-satisfied. And then he stilled, their bodies pressed so closely together that Draco felt every twitch of Potter’s belly and thighs as he came—quiet and shuddering, with his forehead pressed into Draco’s throat, and his gasping breaths hot on Draco’s shoulder. 

Draco had expected a savage end, another bite perhaps. Not that close press, that intimate moment of shared abandon. He had yielded his control for a moment, but had never expected Potter to join him there in that unexpected ceasefire.

Potter slowed his breaths, and tilted his hips to pull his cock free from the clasp of Draco’s body. Then he slid his hands back, releasing his grip on Draco’s arms to take a hold of his hips. Draco brought his hands together in front of him, rubbing at the ache in his forearms, before he slumped forward to the bed, his thighs trembling with the effort of staying upright. It put him right back in the position of presenting his arse to Potter, but at this stage of the evening he couldn’t care. Especially not with the way Potter’s thumbs dipped into his crease and pulled his cheeks apart, not with the way he ran one of those thumbs across Draco’s swollen rim and smeared his own come into the tender skin of Draco’s perineum. He felt open, and wet; messy with Potter’s come and cock. 

Draco tired of the inspection, and lay fully on the bed. He turned to watch as Potter did the same, still panting—his skin shone with sweat, and his cock was flushed and shiny where it lay in the hollow of his hip.

Draco mustered the strength to curl his lip in a smirk. “Serviceable, I suppose.” 

Potter’s mouth quirked, a lopsided smile flitting across his face for a heartbeat before it settled once again into the hardness that had been cast onto his once boyish features. 

Draco stood and stretched—aching and already thinking of a Soothing Salve—before he walked away from Potter to pick up his wand from the table he had so carelessly left it on before Potter decided he was _hungry_. He could feel Potter’s eyes on him: on the shape of his naked body, on his long legs and the inevitable bruises blossoming in the wake of Potter’s fingers, on the shadow of the Mark on the inside of his left arm, on the slick shine where Potter’s come was sliding out of him and kissing the inside of his thigh. He approached the doors leading from the suite to the landing outside, pleased at the quiet snick of the locks turning at his first touch to one polished handle; the Manor _was_ loyal, even in the face of Potter’s storm of power. Draco made it halfway through the door before he half-turned, an artful twist to his spine, to find Potter propped up on his elbows unashamedly watching him.

“You’re not a prisoner here, Potter, there are no locked doors.” Draco repeated the assurance he had given to Potter, a pointed nod to his suspicions about Draco. But it wasn’t a lie. If Potter wanted to leave, he could, and Draco’s plans would be scattered to the wind.

Potter didn’t respond, Draco didn’t even catch him move as he moved to walk through the threshold—but he felt the spell as it landed, subtle, a simple healing spell—no shoddy Reparo—which immediately gentled the ache between his cheeks. He swallowed down his surprise before Potter could see it, settled his shoulders into their usual confident slope, and walked away leaving the doors wide open behind him. 


	6. Avoiding Contempt

Potter didn’t appear for breakfast the following morning, though Sisley informed Draco he had eaten heartily in his room. Draco had wondered, as he washed away the evidence of Potter’s hunger, if his open door policy might bite him in the arse. But he’d slipped into bed with a growing confidence that Potter would stay and sleep, would wait to see what Draco had planned for the morning, before he made his decision to leave. Potter hadn’t been lying when he said he’d learned about patience while he was gone. 

Draco had arranged clothes to be laid out for Potter, tailored for him overnight by a trained house-elf, and idly wondered whether he would use them or come down wearing the ghastly uniform he’d arrived in. Draco had taken his own breakfast early, in his room, before he sequestered himself away in his office to check on his records. It was always wise to have one's ducks neatly lined up before letting out the hunting dogs. Potter might have learned patience, but Draco had learned about putting his plans into action and making them actually _work_. He’d come a long way from getting caught out by old McGonagall, or letting his blinding obsession with Potter destroy all of his hard work. Now, if he had played his cards right, Potter would be the reason all of Draco’s plans came good. 

The wards chimed—audible only to him—a faint song of magic alerting him to his guests’ arrival. There was no alarm or discordance; the Manor knew when people arrived at Draco’s invitation. 

“Sisley,” he called.

A moment later, she appeared with a politely subdued pop. “Yes, Master Draco?”

“Show Mr Potter to the Solarium, and serve tea.” He paused, unsure if Potter would cooperate with the house-elf, or if that only applied to Draco himself. “If he’s difficult, do try to insist; let him know his friends are here, that should smooth his rough edges down. But if he’s too much, come straight to me and I’ll handle it. I’ll escort the new arrivals myself.”

Sisley looked deeply offended at the notion of needing to ask her master for assistance, but as ever, she maintained her professionalism. “Very good, Master Draco. Sisley will take care of Mr Potter.” 

She blinked out of existence, and Draco grinned at her determined announcement. He imagined Potter would find himself at a distinct disadvantage if he tried to stand in the way of Sisley executing her duties. Still the wards sang to him, and he knew this meeting would be tense enough without making Potter’s friends wait too long, so he dragged himself from his chair. As he left the room, he waved his wand at his desk, the filing charm so familiar he didn’t need to speak it out loud anymore. Floating sheafs of parchment arranged themselves neatly in his wake, and the distinct sound of drawers locking followed him into the hallway. 

Granger and Weasley had arrived by Floo—to the formal Floo foyer, of course, not one of his personal fireplaces—and they were holding hands while looking through the enchanted window when he entered the room. He had paused outside the door, listening to their murmured conversation as they watched the herd of deer the window had focused on—it showed scenes from around the Manor lands, shifting throughout the day to show off the best of the flora and fauna the Malfoys owned. As soon as he turned the handle, they fell silent inside the room, but were still standing intimately close when he opened the door fully.

“Good morning Granger, Weasley. I trust you are both well?” Draco knew his smile didn’t reach his eyes, but he didn’t particularly care.

Weasley’s face was impassive, and not for the first time since the end of the war Draco wished for that freckled face to run red with rage or frustration. As much as it pained him to admit it, even in the privacy of his own mind, Draco knew Weasley had a finely honed mind—a balance of incisive analytical skill and a delicate understanding of what made people tick. Granger, on the other hand, was all logic—and shock, if her expression was anything to go by.

Draco’s smile threatened to bloom into genuine delight at the look on her face. He had dressed deliberately casually, forgoing his usual high-collared robes for a pair of charcoal grey trousers and a pale grey shirt; open at the collar to expose the mess Potter made of his neck and collarbones. She opened and shut her mouth twice, before Weasley broke the silence and stepped towards Draco, towing Granger along with him.

“Morning, Malfoy.” He shook Draco’s hand. “We’re fine, just eager to see Harry. Where is he?”

There was a flinty hardness to the question, a demand. For a moment Draco was half tempted to tell them he’d failed to snatch Potter up, let them wait another week. But he carefully set aside his petty inclinations, and reminded himself of the real goal at hand.

“In the Sun Room. If you follow me I’ll take you to him. I’m sure he’s waiting impatiently.”

He took them the direct route, disinclined to spend more time with just the two of them than necessary, and trusting that Sisley had successfully manoeuvred Potter into his place for this little show. Still, Granger managed to attempt an interrogation on the way.

“How is he? Physically, I mean. Well. How is he in himself? Has he asked for us?”

Draco, walking safely ahead of them, rolled his eyes at her indiscretion—surely by now she was aware of his sharklike tendencies, she should know better than to show her soft belly like this. “He’s fine. Surprisingly so, actually. I had to work on him a little last night, but I’m sure he’ll be fine this morning.”

“You didn’t check on him?” Granger asked, tone climbing in indignation.

“We didn’t take breakfast together, if that’s what you’re asking.” Draco shot her a glance over his shoulder, pleased with the straight-lipped annoyance he found there. “Anyway, here we are.”

He pushed open the delicately glazed doors—the work of an incredible Murano craftsman who worked with dragons to achieve startlingly vivid colours and patterns and capture the faintest flicker of dragon-fire in the glass—and led them through the tangled jungle of lush indoor plants towards the table set for tea before the huge window overlooking the rose garden. Draco nudged a velvety Canna leaf aside, and spotted Potter lounging patiently—no evidence of any fallout from his heavy injuries and even more intensive healing from the night before. Potter noticed him immediately, his whole body tensed—alert and primed to move, to cast, to throw the first punch—and his hand went to the wand sitting idly on the table before him. 

“Potter, I’ve brought you some friends to play with.”

Those green eyes flicked to the right of Draco’s shoulder and softened immediately, something like a smile haunting his face, something like loss. He stood from his seat, then froze, his shoulders hunched forward—he looked smaller like that, vulnerable even, if one didn’t already know his capacity for survival. “Ron, Hermione, I—” His words trailed off, the warmth in his voice croaky and unpracticed.

It didn’t stop Granger running to him, and Weasley, too. They touched Potter, held him, patted his face and shoulders like they thought he might be a conjuring, or a ghost—Potter flinched at their first touches. They stood close to Potter, each of them holding one of his hands; Potter hung his head, and Draco was appalled to see the crystalline sparkle of a tear falling from his curl-shadowed face, splashing onto the tiled floor. Potter was silent, but the heaving shudders of his shoulders were eloquent. Granger and Weasley’s stricken expressions filled in what little gaps were left. Draco almost felt bad witnessing it. Almost. So he looked out the window for a moment, even his indelicate sensibilities reluctantly roused by the scene. 

He heard them whispering between themselves, strange questions and answers; _what is your Patronus? Dad. Who made the Marauders Map? Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs_. _How many were there? Seven, there were seven._ Draco listened intently, memorising, and looked over his shoulder at them. He spotted Granger pressing a wand into Potter’s hands, the first touch of the wand to his skin prompting a soft glow to settle around him. It was _Potter’s_ wand—Weasley must have liberated it from the DMLE evidence archive—and the look on his face when he wrapped his fingers around it was a strange mix of wonder and hurt. 

“Alright,” Weasley began. “It’s really Harry, that’s that out of the way.”

Draco scoffed as he moved to the table and took his seat. He gestured to the teapot and it began pouring for them all, the cups and saucers sidled towards each of them, and the milk and sugar flitted between them. “I’ll admit I’m a little offended you’d think I would go to the lengths I have without being _sure_.”

He glanced at Potter, surprised but pleased to see he’d pulled himself together in the brief interlude granted by Weasley’s nonsense and the institutions of British politesse. It boded well for Draco. Potter caught him looking, and held his gaze for a long moment before dropping his eyes to Draco’s throat. And there it was—the snapping fire in his eyes, an intensity unique to the man, burning even in the wake of tears. Tension sprang between them, quick as a Stunner, and hung heavy on the air as Potter’s eyes lingered. Draco shifted where he sat, he hadn’t expected Potter to be quite so taken with surveying the damage he had left behind—Draco had displayed his mauled skin for the benefit of Potter’s friends—and he carefully filed Potter’s reaction away to mull over later, delighted with the implications.

Draco took a sip of his tea and caught Granger looking between the two of them: him and Potter. He saw the very moment she joined the dots, and the ensuing war between stunned disbelief and appalled understanding in her eyes. He didn't know what story she must have told herself when she first saw him that morning, but here, with Potter sitting opposite him, she clearly saw the truth of it; the dark fingerprints on either side of his neck, trophies of Potter’s casually efficient strangulation, and the profound love bite at the base of his throat, purple-red and _deep_. Draco hadn’t healed any of it, and he couldn’t have wished for a better response. He was happy to show off this animal side of the man who lived to his lifelong friends, and _very_ happy to see he could draw it out of Potter over morning tea.

She wanted to say something, he could see it—and with the look she darted towards Potter, Draco had the inkling that _he_ might be the one she was concerned about. Perhaps the years had dulled her unthinking loyalty to Potter, or perhaps Draco had just perfected the art of manipulating her. Weasley put a hand on her arm, and she subsided, though her eyes kept dropping to Draco’s neck.

“Fair enough, Malfoy, but we learned a long time ago that people aren’t always who they seem. Better safe than sorry.” He shrugged. “Once I stood in a room with seven Harrys—I was one of them—and that sort of thing stays with you.”

Draco bit back his immediate desire to know every detail of that particular story, and just nodded in agreement. Weasley wasn’t wrong; Polyjuice, a good Glamour, even a skilled Metamorphmagus could assume the face of another. But nobody could play Potter convincingly enough to fool Draco, not even Weasley. “As delightful as that all sounds, playing dress-up in your best friend’s body—how imaginative—I did bring you here for a reason.”

Potter bristled beside him; indignant on behalf of his minions, as ever.

“No, he’s right, Harry,” Granger said. “We—we’ve been looking for you, all this time. And Malfoy found you when we couldn’t.”

“I’ll admit, it was pure chance, Potter.”

“I could tell, that first night. You looked shocked,” Potter said.

Draco sneered. “So did you. Anyway, I hardly expected to find the lost golden boy half-feral and killing for the pleasure of paying guests. Who would?”

That changed the light in Potter’s eyes entirely, and Draco quietly acknowledged that if Granger and Weasley weren’t there he would probably be getting reacquainted with the business end of Potter’s fists. Granger shifted her chair and took Potter’s hand in her own—he didn’t flinch this time, just twitched briefly before swallowing hard and looking at her. 

“Harry, what happened? Did you… Did you leave of your own accord and then something happened? Or—?” She broke off at the thunderous look on Potter’s face.

“I would have told you two if I was going anywhere—even though I was… struggling. You know that.” Granger flushed at the admonishment, but Potter didn’t stop to soothe her. “I was taken from the house; they were Aurors.”

Draco wasn’t surprised—he knew exactly how rotten the heart of the Ministry truly was—but he was taken aback that Granger and Weasley weren’t similarly nonplussed.

Potter must have taken the silence around him for censure. “There were too many of them; I’d been out, then I came back and then there they were— I couldn’t Apparate to the Burrow—they had something with them, they Stunned me—” 

“It’s okay, Harry, it’s okay. Nobody is blaming you,” Granger assured him. 

“Not at all, they knew what they were doing when they took you out of the picture, Potter,” Draco said.

Weasley had been quiet so far, but it couldn’t last. “How did you end up at these duelling nights then, these Dog Fights?”

“They took me straight to them, Ron.” Potter’s voice was monotone, and Draco wondered what that hand-off had been like, what those first days and weeks had been like. “It was all _arranged_. The Ministry knows about the fights—I heard Julien talking about Leveret loads over the years. There’s money changing hands, they _know_.”

Granger immediately went on the offensive—outrage and righteous anger dripping from every word and wild gesticulation as she looked between Potter and Weasley and ranted about how they would rescue the other fighters—with many a dark look shot in Draco’s direction. For his part, Draco stayed silent, wondering how she could be so distracted in the face of her friend finally returning to her. So busy with the notion of white-hatting she failed to grasp the gravity of what she had just been told—this wasn’t about some unfortunates who fought and died in a ring, it was about the Ministry being used just as ruthlessly and brutally as the Dark Lord would have hoped for. She had a logical mind, but was blinded in the moment due to her acute focus; it had always been her weakness.

It was Weasley who steered the conversation back to Potter. “Do you remember who took you, Harry? Did you see their faces? Their badge numbers?

Potter shot Weasley a flat look. “They weren’t wearing their _badges_ , Ron. But. I would recognise them if I saw them again.”

“I could get access to the directory, and you could look through it—see if they’re still on active duty.” 

Draco watched it all, his face carefully impassive, hiding the broad grin that threatened to break out. He had been aiming to remove the Minister for more than a year, now, and Potter’s valiant return couldn’t have been more neatly tailored to Draco’s needs than if he had conjured it himself.

“What about using a Pensieve? I’ve got one that Potter can use.”

Hermione slanted him a glare. “You know bloody well that they’re inadmissible now, not since the reform of the Evidence Act. They only take evidence from those bloody regulated Pensieves now—makes it _impossible_ to source evidence independently from the Ministry.” 

“Of course, Granger, I was there and voted _against_ that particular little legislative number—I’m sure you remember.” He smiled at her pursed lips. “Anyway, I have a regulation Pensieve in my collection. All signed-off and above board, I assure you.”

“You—” Her astonishment was rather gratifying. 

Draco hummed and sipped his tea. “Yes, well, I did a little favour for Minister Silverberry, and as I’ve been on the board for… what is it, two years now? ...she thought it was a reasonable dispensation.” He smiled, disingenuous. “Don’t worry, Granger. I paid for it myself, no misappropriation of Ministry funds here.”

Weasley interrupted their sparring, measured and calm. “We’re going to need to make this irrefutable. We can’t just have this be some little private affair that Leveret’s legal team can tear apart as soon as we go public.” He drummed his fingers on the table—uncouth, but the sign of a clever mind working at full speed. “We’ll need to balance this out. It can’t just be me and Hermione vouching for Harry. That... That didn’t work last time.”

“Things are different now,” Draco interrupted, stern. He ignored the stormy anger radiating from Potter at the reminded of the disastrous post-war trials and the savage media storm that followed. “And we are about to change them even more. For the better.”

Granger’s sceptical look would have been enough to wilt most opponents, but Draco simply rolled his eyes at the performance. Just because Draco had his own, very personal, agenda at play didn’t mean that the general wizarding public wouldn’t benefit from his largesse, the undeserving fools. 

“I’ve been gone for a long time,” Potter said, voice low and wary. “Am I— Did they write me off?”

“If you’re asking if you’ve been declared dead, then no,” Draco answered. “Not that they didn’t bloody try.”

Potter was silent, but his shoulders relaxed—a fraction—at the confirmation. Granger reached out to him again, and this time the only sign of his discomfort was a tiny twitch in his jaw.

“We didn’t let that happen, Harry. Ron kept the case open, and when they tried to force a Presumption of Death order through the Wizengamot we managed to argue against it—they haven’t touched your house, or your vault—not that I think the Goblins would have been swayed anyway; they have their own ways of knowing.” Granger paused, and her voice was strained as she darted a quick look at Draco before focusing on Potter again. She missed the way Potter ground his teeth at the mention of Goblin magic, and Draco remembered the weight of the torque in his hands, warmed by Potter’s skin. “Malfoy helped with that, actually.”

Draco tipped his head toward her, noting the concession and internally crowing over what it must have cost her to admit it.

Potter slanted a glance at him, and those eyes were just as calculating as when he faced off against an enemy, and just as bright as they had been the night before when he came—messy and hot—over Draco’s twisting fingers. “Oh, did he?”

“Yes, I’m a regular _philanthropist_ these days, Potter. You’ll catch up.” He ignored the way Potter’s observation made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and turned to the red-haired end of the table. “You’re right though, Weasley. We need to work strategically here—finding the Golden Boy who won the war is a coup and we should treat it as such.”

“Exactly my thought,” Weasley nodded. If only he knew that Draco had meant it literally. “First step is we need to confirm Harry’s return—officially—they’ll want to run tests to prove he’s not a cuckoo.”

Potter bristled at the prospect, but didn’t speak. 

“I have a friend—Titus Abercromby—who works in the laboratory at St Mungo’s; he’s a Potions Master. I can arrange for him to handle the necessary spells and potions work,” Draco said.

“And Cho is working directly under Silverberry in the Ministry Prosecution Service, so she can make sure we’re crossing our t’s and dotting our i’s when it comes to the paperwork,” Granger added, businesslike once again.

Potter shifted in his seat, and all eyes landed on him. “What about… the things I did. While I was gone.”

Weasley looked down, his cup of tea suddenly deeply engrossing. Granger opened and shut her mouth twice before snapping it shut and turning to Weasley for support.

“You did what you had to do, Potter,” Draco interjected. “What of it?”

Potter jerked his head, tossing it like a horse annoyed by flies, brushing away Draco’s platitudes. “I killed people.” He glanced at his friends, and the sudden revelation of staggering grief on his face made Draco swallow hard. “Ron, Hermione, I—I did terrible things. I used Unforgivables.”

It was Weasley that spoke up first, measured and inquisitive. “They made you do it though, mate. Didn’t they?” Potter nodded. “How did they do it? Can’t have been Imperius.”

“They used a collar, Weasley. It was Goblin-made, specifically for subduing a wizard’s magic—I kept the example they used on Potter, should we need evidence.”

He could feel Potter’s eyes on him, but didn’t grace him with acknowledgement, pleased with the glint in Weasley’s eye. Draco had thought of everything, each step carefully planned and executed—and he was only halfway done.

“They also used potions on us,” Potter added, quiet. “They used different ones depending on what they wanted us to do, what they were doing with us.”

That explained his refusal to take Draco’s tonics and tinctures the previous night—at least Potter could fight him off with magic or his own bare hands, but nobody was impervious to the subtle power and consuming influence of potions. He almost regretted attempting to make Potter take them. Almost.

“What about the fights, how could you fight if they dosed you for compliance and depressed your magic?” Granger asked, tactless.

“They— Not all of the potions were to keep us calm.” Potter looked down at his hands, resting on either side of his untouched tea. “And they took the collars off before a fight.”

The conversation stalled, Potter staring into his teacup, and Granger staring at her friend with a look of undisguised horror on her face. Draco dismissed them both and directed his words to Weasley, who had managed to maintain at least a _facade_ of calm.

“The wards they employed were robust, I couldn’t make obvious investigations, but from what I saw they were comparable to those used in Azkaban. Natural flow of objects like sand was uninterrupted, but all magic cast within the wards stayed there—even when cast with the not-insignificant power of a man like Potter.” Weasley blinked, surprised. “Indeed. Where they got the know-how for that, I _would_ be curious to find out.”

Draco knew _exactly_ who had shared those Unspeakable-crafted spells. The same Minister who had arranged for The Boy Who Lived to be carted off and killed like a rabid dog. The same Minister that his Father had been working with before his untimely death. The same Minister that Draco had kept in his sights ever since.

“People did try to escape. Someone I was fighting… he tried in the middle of the bout. I stopped and waited to see what would happen, thought I might follow on his heels if I got the chance.” Potter shrugged and fell silent. 

His silence spoke volumes; the fact he was sitting at the table with them was proof enough that his opponent’s attempt had failed, and that Potter had won the fight that night, one way or another. Draco was likely the only person who thought of it with relish, though he had his doubts about Potter, so he broke the silence.

“It seems we have the making of a plan. I assume I can trust the two of you to accompany Potter back to his house in London?”

“We can’t take him there, Malfoy. What if they’ve got people watching it?”

“After all this time?” Potter asked.

“Yeah, Harry. There was a reason they got you off the scene.” Weasley shot a glance at Draco before focusing on his friend. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

“You can come to stay with us, Harry, there’s room for you.”

“Do you have the necessary wards on the house?” Draco was only half trying to offend them; he genuinely wasn’t entirely sure they would have the good sense—or good breeding—to have a properly outfitted magical home. What if they lived in something Muggle, there would be no way they’d be able to shelter Potter from the eyes of the Ministry.

Weasley rolled his eyes, the first open sign of frustration he had allowed himself since he come to Draco weeks ago along with Longbottom, begging for news of Potter. “What planet do you think we live on, Malfoy. _Merlin_ , of course we’ve got the proper wards. Whole thing’s under a bloody Fidelius charm too, does that pass muster?”

Draco pursed his lips, and held back from quipping about what good that clever little charm had done Potter’s parents by a hair. On balance, he allowed that it was probably unwise with his current guests.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to keep him here, Weasley.” Draco studiously ignored the prickling awareness of Potter’s eyes on him, and summoned his house-elf. “Sisley, bring MrPotter’s belongings down to the Foyer, he’ll be leaving shortly.”

“I don’t have any—”

Draco cut Potter off. “As delightful as this has been, I’ve other engagements today. If you would all follow me?” He didn’t pause to hear their replies, simply stood and swept out of the room with the sound of their chairs scraping on tile in his wake. He could tell their footsteps apart; Weasley had the solid weight of a big man, tall and strong and relaxed; Granger still had that hurried pace that had carried her around Hogwarts to too many classes in too little time; Potter was almost silent, his steps measured and careful, belying the speed and power in that body. 

Granger went first through the Floo, her eyes still red but a small smile on her face. She looked relieved and worried all at once. Weasley stayed behind with Potter, bringing up the rear, as ever. Draco had felt Potter’s eyes on him for long minutes now, and despite preparing himself, the rush of tangled fear and want that curled in his belly when he finally met those green eyes still took him by surprise. Draco had always been drawn to dangerous things; he’d begged his mother for a Cerberus puppy for six months before she’d given in. He’d stolen his father’s ceremonial athame when he was nine, and had borne the ensuing punishment without crying—so he’d been allowed to keep it. Potter was a dangerous thing, he always had been, but his edge had been ground over the last three years to a honed sharpness that cut the very air itself. Draco would have to work to have a chance of keeping hold of him.

Sisley had packed a neat little valise with the items Draco had selected earlier that morning and left it on a side table next to the fireplace. Draco gestured to it and Potter narrowed his eyes. “Just some essentials I’m sure you’ll appreciate, Potter.”

Potter’s hand hovered over the case, and even though he wasn’t looking at it, Draco could tell he was checking it. His magic, unfettered, could _do_ that. It was a good thing Draco wasn’t stupid; lesser men would have tried to use cursed objects or time-delayed hexes, but Draco had tried all that when he was still in school, and had learned his lessons. He had outfitted Potter with nothing more than well-tailored clothes and the potions he had assembled the previous night to treat the lingering injuries and magical damage he had noted while Potter was laid out and unconscious. Merlin forbid he wear Weasley’s clothes, or take potions brewed by Granger; they would be technically excellent, no doubt, but she lacked the necessary intuitive creativity to elevate potions to their most potent and effective potential.

“I’ll see you both tomorrow.” He paused, and shot them his most disarming smile. “You’re welcome.”

Weasley didn’t splutter, but his lips were tight, and Draco didn't look at Potter on his way out of the room; but he felt Potter’s eyes on him, on his back. It felt like he had a target drawn between his shoulder blades, like he’d caught the attention of a creature he’d been luring in patiently for more than a decade now. He’d done enough, he thought, to keep Potter on the hook.


	7. Prudence

Draco had only eaten one mouthful of his supper—bloody steak and asparagus lavished with hollandaise—when the letter arrived. A neat Tawny owl settled at his right hand and held its foot out, obstinate in the face of his grimace. Granger’s cursive was hurried and terse: _Something is wrong with Harry, I found the potions you sent with him—he claims he didn’t take any, come and fix this._

He should have known it was never going to be simple; as soon as Potter was involved in anything it all started slipping towards chaos. With a sigh he cast a stasis charm over his dinner, though he doubted he’d be back soon enough to still want to eat it, and Apparated to the street outside of the Weasley-Granger residence. Weasley was waiting on the pavement, and he handed Draco a slip of parchment with an address written on it. As Draco read, movement caught his eye—magic unfurling to reveal the surprisingly elegant home shrouded behind the slippery power of a Fidelius.

“Weasley, what’s happened? I was just eating dinner.” 

Draco caught his eye roll as he turned to lead them into the house. “Terribly sorry, Malfoy, but your little pet project is currently delirious in my guest bedroom—maybe you remember him? Name’s Harry Potter?”

“I’ll assume that as you’re still capable of being facetious he’s not _that_ unwell. What are the symptoms? Could neither of you convince him to take the potions?”

“No. And it started about half an hour ago—his hands started shaking, he said it was nothing. But then he got all grey, and clammy-looking, and he fell… he couldn’t stand up under his own power.”

Draco felt the scowl gathering in his brows. He hadn’t planned for this. “Is he in pain? Is it his chest?”

“What happened to his chest?”

“He took a Bombarda last night. I healed up the majority of it, but the potions were intended to complete the job.” 

Weasley whirled to face him, a stricken expression on his face. “A _Bombarda?_ He—how—”

“I’m sure he’s dealt with worse since you last saw him. But if you could save the shock and horror for after I’ve seen what’s going on, that would be helpful.”

Weasley’s jaw was clenched as he opened the door to a spacious room decorated in pale blue and grey. Draco restrained himself from analysing the minutiae of the space, and focused on Potter, who lay on the bed covered with a sheet. He was just as pale and sweaty as Weasley had described, and the shaking of his hands had transformed into a muscular tremor running through his whole body. It looked disturbingly like the effects of Crucio and for one moment all Draco could hear were the echoes of his aunt’s voice in his memories. Granger had cast the usual charms around the bed, and she had arranged the small potions bottles and vials on one bedside table.

“Has he responded to anything? Did you manage to make him take any of the tinctures?”

Draco was grateful for Granger’s ruthless streak of pragmatism—much preferable than her wildly dogmatic idealism—because she didn’t flap or cry in the face of Potter’s clear suffering.

“No, he wouldn’t take them—he pushed me away and I—” her voice was steady, but he could tell she was shaken. “I checked the labels, and tested the contents too—I told him they’re simply healing potions but I don’t know if he can’t understand me or he just doesn’t believe it. After they dosed him with potions for all this time…”

All of those potions, for all of that time. Draco had a sinking suspicion that this was more complicated than the lingering effects of Potter’s last Dog Fight. 

“He wasn’t a particularly cooperative patient last night, either, except for when he was unconscious.” Draco eyed Potter’s face, his eyes were closed but he wasn’t asleep, not with the thrumming tension in every muscle of his body. If he were still at the Manor he’d have simply Stupefied Potter and got on with what he needed to do, given the present company Draco decided to let that be the last resort. “I’ll try.” 

Granger moved to the other side of the bed to allow him access to the potions, a grimace on her face. Was it shame that she couldn’t care for Potter herself? Or was it that old disgust at Draco having survived and thrived in the minefield of post-war Britain? Either way, she wasn’t going to like what came next. Weasley had folded his arms, and stood in the doorway like some kind of security guard. Draco could see him fingering at the wand holstered on his forearm, the tips of his right hand tucked under the cuff of his ghastly knitted jumper. He had managed to make his way through the Auror ranks, sidestepping the traps laid for him, and avoiding the lucrative lure of corruption like so many of his colleagues—he could make things difficult for Draco. 

Draco didn’t bother to speak to Potter. He’d bet on his mother’s life that he already knew it was Draco sitting down next to him on the over-soft bed—he’d probably been aware the moment Draco set foot inside the house. The only question was whether Potter would attempt to kill him this time.

He picked up the delicate little vial of Dittany tincture. It would heal any residual internal damage from the blasting curse, Potter’s lungs and muscles might still have been bleeding. Draco thumbed open Potter’s bottom lip, ignoring the weight of Granger and Weasley’s stares, and put the rim of the unstoppered bottle to his mouth. At the first cool touch of the glass to his lip, Potter’s eyes opened and focused on Draco, lucidity and alertness dredged from whatever chasmic depths of resolve Potter had subsisted on for the entirety of his life. 

“Take it, Potter. It’s for your chest.” Draco waited, careful not to let Potter’s trembling shake his hand enough to tip the tincture into his mouth. “Granger and Weasley are worried about you. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

Perhaps it had been naive of him to think he could distract Potter so easily, by dangling his friends in front of him like a lure. It didn’t work; Potter’s stare was heavy and unyielding despite the tremors racking his body. But he didn’t try to strangle Draco, and he didn’t turn away from him, and that was enough progress to fill Draco with the sharp pleasure of a plan working. He just had to be patient.

Sure enough, Potter tilted his chin; a minute movement, but enough to allow a trickle of potion into his mouth. He didn’t wince at the taste, despite the fact that it was foul, and he swallowed it all. The effect was immediate. Colour rose in his skin—his lungs must have still been carrying damage, and now he was getting the proper oxygen he needed. But the shaking didn’t stop, nor did the sweating; his hair was stuck to his forehead and neck, and the collar of his t-shirt was dark. 

“Granger, I don’t think these are going to work—this isn’t about his injuries.” She looked like she was going to interrupt so he held his hand up and ploughed ahead. “No, that sorted the chest out but _this_ isn’t about his duelling. I’m quite sure he’s suffering from some kind of after-effect of the potions they were dosing him with.”

She subsided and nodded, cogent enough of the facts to not resist his logic even if it came from a much-hated quarter. “You’ll contact Abercromby then, he’s your Potions Master, isn’t he? And we were going to bring him on board anyway, so… ”

“Yes, I’ll owl tonight. I’ll leave Potter in your capable hands, and let you know as soon as I have details.”

Granger picked at the duvet cover, before raising her chin with a mulish look on her face. “Thank you, Malfoy.”

Another favour he had bestowed on them, they were rather totting up. “You’re welcome, I’ll see myself out.

Draco Apparated home as soon as their front door closed behind him, counting the victories of the day. The Fidelius Charm protecting Potter was now open to him, Weasley and Granger owed him yet another boon, and Potter—well—Potter had _trusted_ him.

If he could just keep Potter alive long enough to fulfil the rest of his hopes, Draco would be a happy man.

  


* * *

  


The mirror-smooth surface of the Pensieve swirled as Draco poured the Compere’s memories into it, an ink drop into glassy silver. He would have to sift through the mess of the man’s life to focus on the moments most relevant to his needs. Draco had ripped his memories from his mind wholesale—holding them in a thought-box inside his own mind until he poured them out into a phial in his after sending Potter away with his friends. But a lifetime of Occlumency and Legilimency practice paid off—Draco was as adept using a Pensieve as any of the Ministry appointed Scrutineers, and he skimmed through the man’s memories with ease. Still, it took him more than an hour to flick through the drivel of the man’s existence before he landed upon a memory of a potions lab. 

Draco closed his eyes and pressed his face into the smoky coolness of the Pensieve, dropping down _into_ the memory. Inhabiting it. He found himself standing in the corner of the neatly ordered potion lab—tidiness was required when it came to brewing, even in the dark underbelly of the criminal world. Around the small room there were shelves lined with bottles, labelled in printed script, as thorough and extensive as any well-stocked Apothecary. They certainly had done things properly; there was Wolfsbane and Mountain Ash tinctures, drops to dull a Veela’s Allure, and more mind-altering potions than Draco had seen since he had cleared out his Father’s personal suite after his funeral.

_“What about Potter?” a man asked. Draco couldn’t recognise him. He hadn’t seen him at any of the fight nights; but he committed his face to memory now, blunt cheekbones and thick eyebrows over flinty eyes._

_The Compere stood off to the side, present but not involved in the conversation. He looked ludicrous with his curling mustache and his embroidered robes; a clown away from the circus. Perhaps he had been invited because he would be in the ring with the combatants, if only for those few moments before he escaped the beginning of the duels. Draco ignored him, much more interested in the potion master’s answer._

_“What about him? He’s just a man, like the rest of them. I’ve been managing half-feral werewolves for you for the last month, Thaddeus—do you think a wizard is going to give me any trouble?”_

_“Everyone knows he can resist Imperio—what if he can do the same with the potions?”_

_The Potions Master snorted—he was an ugly devil, pockmarked and greasy. “He might, at first. But these doses settle in the blood; enough days of doping him and you’ll see.”_

_“What are you going to brew for him?”_

_“Well, I’ve got a nice little menu for Mr Potter…”_

Draco himself lifted up and out of the memory like smoke, blinking the past from his eyes as he reoriented himself in the now. He really _would_ have to reach out to Titus Abercromby, though he didn’t like to—the bastard charged _interest_ on favours, had done ever since school. He had been planning on sending Granger to deal with all of the identity checks for Potter. But for this, they didn’t have the time; Draco would have to negotiate, and he was discomfited to realise he was willing to owe. He turned from the Pensieve and moved to his desk, dashing off a quick note and sending it off with his owl, Aspen.

He knew the potions he’d seen lined up on the Potions Master’s workbench in the stolen memory; he’d even brewed them himself once or twice. But he had to admit he had no idea what the long-term effects might be. Not good, if Potter’s condition was anything to go by. Draco settled at his desk to start on the rest of the correspondence he had promised during his morning meeting with the golden trio, using a charmed parchment to send copies of his letters to all parties concerned. 

There had been no contact from Granger or Weasley, so he presumed Potter was in the same state he had left him. Draco looked out of the window, staring into the darkness of the gardens and grounds beyond them. The winter roses were beginning to bud, their dark petals glowing in the night; pale pink lights lining the paths and beds of the _parterre_. He poured himself a drink and settled into the familiar comfort of his chair. One of the house-elves had lit the fire before he returned from his visit to London, and the quiet crackle of well-seasoned logs as they burned in the grate was as soothing as the heat and savour of the Bunnahabhain Firewhisky on his tongue.

Whatever was wrong with Potter, Draco wanted it resolved quickly. The entire architecture of his plan was built upon the foundation of a sudden attack so intense and unexpected that the Ministry wouldn’t be able to recover from it. And _that_ relied upon Potter being able to follow through with Draco’s expectations of a grand, and intimidating, re-entry to wizarding society. Before attending that first Dog Fight Draco might have had other ideas, but as soon as he realised he had found Potter, he knew he held the winning hand. It needed to be played hard and fast, though—he’d done his patient waiting, his careful planning—now was the time for an offensive just like Potter had used in the ring. Darting in at soft and tender spots, and slicing deep. If Potter couldn’t stand tall and strong and be the blade Draco hoped for, the last two years of steady forward movement would crumble into inertia and stymied manoeuvring. 

“Draco?”

Draco turned, startled, and found Titus’ frowning face hovering in green flames.

“Titus, I didn’t expect you to call over—did you need more details?” He probably just wanted to squeeze more out of Draco in return than he had already promised in his note. “Can’t say much more about the patient in question, I’m afraid.”

“It doesn’t matter who it is, Draco.” Titus shook his head and trailed off, and Draco couldn’t be bothered snapping at him for the melodrama, he just wanted information.

“Well?”

“That combination of potions, being taken for as long as you said this chap has been on them… They’re designed to suppress parts of a person’s impulses, unleash others, but long term? He’s addicted to them, Draco. Altering a person like that, it’s a tricky business when it comes to potions.” He paused, the flickering green flames around him casting his pale skin into a sickly pallor. Draco waited, impatient, his stomach turning. “Imperius might be unforgivable, but it’s _clean_. If you take these potions for long enough their active ingredients can settle into the nervous system, even into the brain itself, and the person might never _quite_ shake the effects.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you need to wean him off this shit, and then we can look at longer-term solutions.”

“Titus, I don’t have the time to coddle this man. A slow reduction of dosage is out of the question, he needs to be functioning as soon as possible; _now_. What are the options?”

“I can give you some recipes for potions to purge and maybe neutralise what’s lingering in his system—I’m sure you can brew them yourself—but I can’t guarantee that they’ll put him back the way he was before he started getting dosed with this lot.”

“But they will get him over this physical response? He’ll be able to walk and talk and wield his magic?”

Titus sighed, the sound almost lost over the crackle of the fire. “Yes, he’ll be functional. It’s just, the rest will take much longer, if it ever heals completely.”

“That’s quite enough for me. Give me the recipe now, and I’ll begin brewing right away.”

Draco hastily jotted down the ingredients and instructions that Titus recited through the flames, already mentally prioritising the steps of each potion so that he could make them simultaneously. It would be a rough ride for Potter, taking these, the Purging Potion in particular—it would strip his nervous system of any lingering potion elements that hadn’t already embedded themselves into the myelin. It wouldn’t be pretty, this wasn’t a simple case of vomiting up poison. Draco curled his lip; he would probably have to be the one to administer the potion, and he already knew that Granger and Weasley would be deeply suspicious of him once it got to work.

“Thank you, Titus, and goodnight. Look out for my owl; I imagine I’ll be giving you feedback within the next day or so—I’ll start brewing tonight.

“Right you are, Draco. I’d say good luck, but it’s whatever poor devil is going to be taking those potions that’ll need it.”

Titus’ face disappeared, and when the green of the Floo faded into dark red, Draco’s office was silent once more. Draco sat back in his chair and sipped at his Firewhisky. So Potter might have been altered, not just by the trauma, but by the potions. He ground his teeth and thought of Potter in the arena, in his cell, in the great hall of the manor, and in the bed Draco had chosen for him. He _was_ a changed man, but the core of him was the same—Draco was convinced of it. Potter’s magic smelled the same, and those tears he had shed when he saw his friends for the first time were the same Draco had seen welling in his eyes at the end of the Triwizard tournament, at the too-early end of the trials post-war. Titus could be mistaken. There had been precious little research into how potions affected witches and wizards of different backgrounds, never mind the subtle nuance of raw magical power. And Potter had always been the worst kind of wildcard.

Draco snapped his fingers, and Sisley appeared with his lab robes neatly folded over her arm. 

“Master Draco will be needing these if he is to be brewing tonight.” She nodded to herself as she laid the heavy cotton on Draco’s desk. “I’ll fetch tea for you in an hour.”

She and the Manor were so closely tied to Draco now that he wasn’t surprised at her forethought and awareness of his plans. He wrote a brief note to Granger while Sisley stood patiently beside his desk. “Aspen is out at the moment. I need you to deliver this to Miss Hermione Granger, the house is under a Fidelius—it’s sixty-three, Coniger Road, Fulham—I don’t imagine you’ll be able to see it but you should be able to make yourself known. Once you’re back, send Ladby up with the tea, thank you. I’ll need you in the morning.”

“Of course, Sir. Goodnight, Sir.” She disappeared with the loud crack of long-distance travel, the roll of parchment clutched carefully in her spindly little hands. She was the only house-elf he’d trust to do the job, particularly as Granger and Weasley had already met her. 

Draco drained his glass and stood to slip the crisp white robes over his shoulders, then unlocked the door that connected his study to his potions lab. It would be a long night, but if he kept his focus he should have potions ready to shove down Potter’s throat by the following day. And then, onward.

  


* * *

  


“Are you _aware_ that house-elves are not common in the middle of Muggle streets in London, Malfoy?” 

He couldn’t quite tell if she was annoyed that he’d somehow exposed her Muggle neighbours to magic, or if it was just because he’d had the gall to send his own house-elf on a perfectly reasonable errand. “Quite, Granger, but as my owl still hadn’t returned from delivering my earlier missive, and as I did promise so sincerely to keep you updated, I felt it was the only sensible thing to do.”

“What if a car had come and she—”

Weasley interrupted, thank Merlin. “Anyway, Hermione. You said you’ve got something for Harry, Malfoy?”

Draco lifted the two small vials he had spent the last fourteen hours brewing. “Yes. I can’t say it’s going to be pleasant, but according to my research this is the only way to get Potter past the worst of getting cut off from his potions.”

“Cut off?”

“Yes. He’s addicted.” Draco ignored the twin looks of aggrieved guilt. “And as we don’t have time to wean him off, this is it. He’s going to be quite unwell after I give him these, so you’ll need to keep a close eye on him for the next twenty-four hours. The fever should break, but there might be neurological pain—you can’t give him anything for it. No potions until these have done their work.”

“Go on then, give them to him.” 

“What do you mean?”

Weasley’s smile was mean. “Well, as you’re the only one he’ll take a drop of medicine from—you can dose him. And if it’s as wretched as you make it out to be, he’ll remember that _you_ were the one that did it to him.”

Granger led him to the guest bedroom again, and when he caught sight of Potter over her shoulder, Draco had to work to keep his blank mask of passive arrogance at play. He looked appalling. Sweat had matted his hair to his forehead, and the bright spots of colour on his cheeks only highlighted the grey-tinged pallor of the rest of his usually warm skin. His eyes were closed, but fluttered and moved behind his lids in a fevered frenzy. His lips were chapped and dry, and the sheets clung to his sweat-damp body. He wouldn’t have looked out of place huddled in a filthy corner of Knockturn alley, shivering and shaking like all the other potions addicts that would be as quick to knife you as to beg for a sickle that they might be able to spend on a drop of their chosen poison.

He didn’t even look conscious of the fact that Draco had entered the room, and the contrast with his knife-bright awareness from just the previous day in Draco’s solarium was offensive to some deep part of Draco’s mind that he was disinclined to investigate. At least it would be easy to make Potter take the potions; Draco could just tip them down his neck and then get out of this house and wait for Granger’s letter.

Draco sat on the bed, careful to keep his distance, cringing away from the sweat and disarray of the sheets covering Potter’s body. “The purging potion has to be taken first,” he narrated to the room, as though they were listening—both Granger and Weasley were focused on Potter, though Draco assumed Weasley had his wand close to hand just in case Draco tried anything. 

He managed to get the vial to Potter’s lips without incident, and began to trickle the deep green potion into his mouth, watching carefully for the natural swallow instinct to kick in. Potter needed to take all of it for it to work. Half of the vial had passed Potter’s dry lips before his eyes opened, squinting even in the low light of the bedside lamp. Draco held his nerve and tilted the glass higher, emptying the rest of the potion into Potter’s mouth and hoping he would swallow it down before he realised what he was doing. He lifted the rim of the vial away from Potter’s lips, and turned to smirk at Granger—he had managed it, when she wouldn’t even try—and then Potter grabbed at him. 

It wasn’t the unrelenting chokehold he had managed on his first night in Draco’s home, it was a desperate clutch at Draco’s wrist. Potter held Draco’s hand away from him, the one holding the empty potions vial, and he held it firm even as his forehead creased with the first wave of pain.

“Potter, it’s me, you idiot—not those imbeciles from the fights. This is to help you—but it’s going to hurt.” Draco paused, and tried to draw his hand away, but even like this Potter’s grip held firm. “It’s not poison. It’s medicine. Granger—tell him—”

To his surprise, it was Weasley who spoke up. “Harry, Harry, mate.” He moved to the foot of the bed, leaned forward so that Potter could see him even without his glasses. “It’s okay, think of it like Skele-Gro. Bloody disgusting and sore as hell, but it’ll fix you up. Those potions they were giving you, they’ve messed you up a bit.”

“I checked it, Harry, I checked what Malfoy gave you. It’s okay. I promise.” Granger was petting at Potter’s forehead as she spoke, brushing his hair from his brow, speaking softly.

Draco stared at Potter, watched as the deep green of the potion pulsed at his throat, then in a dark tracery along his veins. It was in his blood now—good—it would settle through the venous system into the nerves, into the brain, and start the purge soon. It was easier to watch the way he winced, and bit back the pain, than to look at the way Granger and Weasley looked at Potter. Potter’s grip loosened, the first shudder of pain spasming in his fingers, and Draco pulled away and stood.

“I’ll leave him to you. Send me a letter when it’s done.” 

Granger ignored him, and Weasley tipped him a distracted nod as he moved to sit next to Potter. Once again Draco swept through their home, the sound of Potter’s rising cries of agony behind him. He clenched his jaw until he was out into the London air, wet with rain this time, and Apparated home. Soon, Potter would be ready.

  


* * *

  


It took two days—too long—Draco had to stifle his rage at the delay, at the risk of being discovered—but Potter had made it through the painful rigour of his accelerated potions withdrawal. Granger and Weasley looked pale and grieven; it must have been unpleasant, then. Draco was quietly pleased he’d handed Potter off to them. He might have felt the dark heat of pleasure watching Potter fight to the death in the ring, but that was different, that was Potter standing his ground and using his body and magic and mind to carve out survival, that was… _incandescent_. Potter sick with poisons was repulsive. Draco wasn’t interested in witnessing it, wasn’t interested in anything other than watching Potter unleashed and unrestrained by anything so petty as the banalities of due process.

But due process would take them to the point of no return, and then Potter could roam with his newfound freedom, and Draco could remind him who he owed it to. This was a life-debt that carried all the weight of every body that had fallen under Potter’s hand, every scar and drop of blood Potter would have shed to the sand until he was finally worn down by the fights if Draco hadn’t found him. Potter might be uniquely robust but even _he_ would have wearied eventually, yielding to the violence or the potions. It wasn’t simply that Draco had saved Potter’s life; he had given him back his freedom, and that was a heavy thing indeed.

Draco had spent the time Potter took to recover arranging meetings with the Healer Granger had suggested, along with Titus and Cho Chang to ensure that they could confirm Potter’s identity, deposit all of his evidence from his kidnapping and his time in the hold of the Dog Fights, and wrap it all into a tidy noose to loop around Gideon Leveret’s neck.


	8. New Princedoms

Draco waited impatiently in his seat next to the Speaker for thirty interminable minutes as the Wizengamot officially opened for the day’s session; it took that long for the Minister of Magic to drawl his way through a speech about tradition, and order, and legacy. As though the man had anything of value to leave in his wake. As if anyone would remember him as anything more than the wizard who snuck into the power-vacuum left by the war; too small and weak to have been a veteran of _either_ side, too self-interested to have made sufficient connections in his tenure as Minister for Magic for anyone to rescue him from his impending fall from grace.

Minister Leveret sat, to a restrained patter of applause, and the Speaker stood to announce the agenda for the session, the deep blue robes of office settling heavily around her. “The debate on taxation of imported pewter cauldrons will continue, with the honourable Minister Partridge presenting the court with evidence of projected costs to domestic producers if import duties are relaxed. But before that, we have a case brought to the Wizengamot by Draco Malfoy,” she paused, and dipped her head demurely. “Apologies to you all; it was a late addition to the session after the memos were sent last night.”

The Chief Adjudicator raised an eyebrow, but it wasn’t unheard of for cases or bills to be proposed without a great deal of notice. “In that case, I call Wizengamot member Draco Malfoy to the floor.” He squinted over his pince-nez at Draco as he stood and made his way from his seat to the centre of the courtroom; old Elmore had done well in the wake of Lucius’ death. Draco had forgiven some long-standing family debt that had been hanging around his neck, and hadn’t called on the favour yet. “Take us through it Mr Malfoy, but please be aware that this session has a full agenda to work through.”

Draco had reached the dark tiles of the floor of the court and looked up toward Elmore with what he was confident was a studied respectfulness. “Of course, honoured Adjudicator, I’ll be quick.” He drew himself up to his full height, and despite the fact that he despised the colour, he was aware his formal Wizengamot robes did lend him an air of respectability that he knew would make a charming impression in the history books. “I am petitioning the court to reopen the case of Mr Harry James Potter’s disappearance.”

There were immediate mutterings around the courtroom, and not just from the assembled press and general public in the gallery—it wasn’t a closed court today, thanks to Draco’s last-minute management of the agenda. The Minister for Magic sent a loud crack and a pop of violent light from the end of his wand, bringing the room to order, before pinning Draco with a sharp gaze.

“To my knowledge that case is… three years old. What has provoked this fresh interest?” The old man couldn’t have played into Draco’s hands more neatly if Draco had coached him.

“Mr Potter has been found, Minister.” Draco stifled his soaring glee as he heard the gasps. “He has been found, and the story of his disappearance is… shocking to say the least.” 

_That_ got everyone’s attention, including the Minister’s own, and several members of his cabinet—including Matthew Bulstrode, Millie’s uncle, who Draco had seen more than once at the Dog Fights, losing himself in a frenzy of bloodlust. Weasley and Granger sat placid-faced amongst the shocked members of the Wizengamot, and Draco idly wondered when they would realise his true goal here.

“Chief Adjudicator, this is not the time or place—this is news to be officially confirmed, and celebrated _if true_ , not dragged through the court of public opinion before there is any legal acknowledgement.” Minister Leveret kept his voice level, but Draco could see it in his eyes; he was rattled, and reverting back to the old tried and tested routine of suppression. 

He had calculated for this, though. “Forgive me, Your Honour, but I can reassure the Minister—I am the last person one would expect to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, or be anything less than _scrupulous_ in my attention to detail.” Draco paused, and several Ministers squirmed in their seats, all aware of quite how much detail of their lives Draco had paid attention to.

“Having worked quickly with Head Potions Specialist Titus Abercromby of St Mungo’s and Ministry Legal Counsel Cho Chang—with the understanding that this is an unusually high-profile case—I can attest that Harry Potter _has_ been found. He has divulged his experiences of the last three years into a Ministry-registered Pensieve; the contents of which has been inspected by a senior Ministry Scrutineer.” Already, Draco could see the ripples forming around the pebble he had cast into the water, and he had to work to restrain his satisfaction from showing. Some faces were alight with excitement and curiosity, others had crumpled; ashen, and worried, and trying to hide it. 

“Your Honour, Mr Potter’s testimony, and sundry evidence collected since his discovery, provide unimpeachable proof that there is a corrosive corruption in our dear Ministry—a corruption that leads all the way to the Minister _himself_ , as he _personally_ arranged the kidnapping of Mr Harry Potter three years ago for his own—” the uproar around him grew in volume and he raised his voice to be heard above the din, “—for his own political gain. In light of this, I propose—as the only secure and sensible option for the safety and integrity of the entire magical community of Britain—that the current cabinet is arrested and that prior to a full trial, the Minister should be held pending formal investigation.” He was almost shouting now, to be heard over the rising din. “ _And_ I submit to the Wizengamot that our member Ronald Weasley should step forward as Interim Minister of Magic in order to steer this revered body through the challenging days ahead.” 

Weasley looked momentarily poleaxed, but recovered quickly. Granger didn’t; she sat wide-eyed and staring at Draco for long moments as the room erupted around them. Leveret half-stood from his throne-like chair in shock, but Draco pressed on—he had been ready for this, and he would press his argument to the heart of the matter before any dissenting voices could be heard. He raised his voice above the shocked muttering around him, already eyeing the old traditionalists whose hackles were rising at the prospect of a Weasley in the most powerful position in the land. 

“As I’m sure the honoured members of this court are aware, there is a longstanding feud between my family and the Weasleys. _However_ , Mr Weasley is a decorated veteran of the Second Wizarding War of Britain, a Senior Auror, and he possesses a fine analytical mind. His family are one of the original members of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, can trace their lineage back to Anglo-Saxon magical Britain, and have a long history of service in the Ministry of Magic. The Ministry could do, and has done, far worse. I, of course, will make myself available for any questions this court may have on the matter.” 

The Minister for Magic’s cabal of loyal undersecretaries was squawking almost as loudly as the press corps behind Draco, and the flash of cameras began in earnest. But Ron was looking right at Draco, those blue eyes steady; he knew what Draco was doing. 

They had played chess once, at one of Draco’s parties. Draco had arranged for them to find themselves together in a secluded sideroom; they hadn’t spoken to each other for the duration of the game, they had just played, watching and weighing each other with every move of ivory and ebony. It was the hardest game of chess Draco had ever played; it had been like flying against Potter. But Draco had won. And Draco was going to win, here, today, against the Minister, against the Ministry itself. But the look in Weasley’s eye was just like it had been that night in the Manor—Draco would have another difficult game ahead of him now that he had personally elected Weasley to this fresh seat of power. 

Draco looked away from Weasley as the Chief Adjudicator flicked his wand repeatedly, and when his customary sparks of light and cracks of noise failed to break through the din, he cast a hasty Sonorous and bellowed until silence fell.

“Mr Malfoy, this is an extraordinary assertion, an extraordinary accusation. What proof have you brought to this court today?”

And _that_ was what Draco had been waiting for, he knew his voice was smug but he managed to control the malicious grin threatening to break free across his face. “I bring Harry Potter himself, Your Honour.”

The tension on the air was tangible; the fear and impending doom oozing from the pores of the Minister and his lackeys, the bated breath of every journalist, and Draco’s own rising excitement. When Potter stepped through the small side door and swept into the room, silence swept with him. Draco watched every move, hungry. 

Potter was dressed in exquisitely tailored robes; the fabric unadorned but rich enough to make him look like a returning Lord. Black wool robes and a stark white shirt left Potter’s face the star of the show. Even in his absence, that lightning bolt scar and those green eyes had stayed famous, just like they had when he had been spirited away from their world as a baby. He stood now with the same calm confidence he had that first night Draco had watched him fight; shoulders relaxed, hands open at his sides. He looked like a man simply waiting for a friend to join him, for a drink to be put in his hand; but Draco knew that was a lie spelled out in muscle and bone. Potter was as ready to fight now as he had been in the blood-stained arena, with an instinct for weak spots and a determination to survive that put the ruthlessness of the politicians around him to shame. 

It was a new kind of thrill, to be standing beside Potter on the battleground—even if it was the arena of law and political manoeuvring—and to know that he had Potter on his side. But Draco could get used to it. 

  


* * *

  


Draco was in his room of Curiosities when Sisley appeared at his elbow. 

“Sisley is sorry, Master Draco, but the House let him in and then he was _very_ insistent.” She was wringing her hands, the conflict between her loyalty to Draco and the way her magic was entwined with the Manor showing in nervous tics she rarely exhibited. “Sisley didn’t know what to do.”

Draco looked over his shoulder and found Potter standing in the doorway to the room, his eyes darting around the display cases, the glass domes covering glittering magical timepieces and malignant jewels, the trinkets and talismans that had caught Draco’s attention ever since he had stolen his first piece from his father. Draco’s collection of treasures. The wards had let Potter in, he couldn’t have strong-armed them—not even with the undeniable strength of his magic and his will. They were too deeply-rooted for that, too tied to the land, too tied to Malfoy blood. This was something else. This was the Manor echoing his own helpless curiosity, the strange draw he had always felt towards Potter, worse now than ever before. 

“That’s quite alright, Sisley, I was expecting Mr Potter.”

She knew he was lying, but she settled her spindly hands at her sides, and only narrowed her enormous eyes at Potter for a moment before snapping her fingers and disappearing with a louder pop than usual.

“You’ve offended my house-elf,” Draco said.

“I wasn’t expecting you to suggest Ron.”

“Well, I’d hate to become _too_ predictable.”

Draco glanced at him, then away, towards the glass cabinet housing the torque that had so neatly severed Potter’s connection to his magic for so long. Potter’s footsteps were light as he crossed the room, slowing to stand behind Draco. A prickle of anticipation swept across Draco’s shoulders at the sense of him there, so close. Both of them stood looking at it, and Draco had thought Potter might ask why he’d kept it, why he was showing it to him now. But no; it was more talk of Weasley, of course. 

“When did you decide you would nominate him?” Potter asked. He sounded curious, not suspicious, and Draco wondered when that had occurred.

“When did you decide to come here?” Draco countered.

“He’s the right choice. I’m just… I wasn’t sure you knew how to make those.”

“Right is subjective.” Draco paused, ran his finger along the edge of the glass enclosing the torque. “Weasley’s better than Leveret, anyway. He knows how to play chess.”

“I’m shit at chess.”

Draco smirked. “I know. But you’re good at other things. Not everything is a game of subtlety.”

“I was going to come over anyway. I’d made my mind up before you decided to set the Wizengamot on fire with your little bit of melodrama.” Potter paused, and Draco felt his eyes on him. “You kept the collar.”

“I did. It’s interesting. Unusual.” Draco gestured to the room around them, filled with his treasured oddities and relics. “I collect unusual artefacts.”

Potter moved closer, and Draco knew that he was now the only one paying attention to the contrast of the deeply graven runes against the bright silver of the torque. His voice was low. “Are you planning to collect me, too?”

“You wouldn’t fit on one of the plinths, Potter. And don’t fool yourself, you’re not _that_ interesting.” Draco was a good liar, but he doubted Potter would believe him.

Potter breathed in behind him, and Draco felt his magic reaching out, almost tangible. “They’re not just curiosities though, are they? I can feel the magic in here. You’ve got some nasty pieces here.”

“They all have their purposes.”

“Like me?” Potter asked. And it wasn’t accusatory. “I killed people.”

“You survived,” Draco corrected. Potter was silent, and the moment stretched between them, elastic and bright with the potential for an explosion. They had never disagreed well. “It’s just the same as the Forest—don’t look at me like that, you think my mother didn’t tell me? You walked into that forest with your head held high, and you went into the arena the same way. You didn’t _change_ because of the fights, you were already this man.” Potter was still silent, staring down over Draco’s shoulder at the torque now. It was easier to speak without having to look him in the eye. The silver collar rested on a black velvet mount, and Draco couldn’t help but admit that it looked the poorer for the lack of Potter’s bronze skin, the strength of his neck and the vulnerable dip of his throat. “And I heard about what you cast at Bellatrix, and Amycus, too.” Draco waited, and sure enough, Potter’s spine stiffened. “The war made beasts of us all.”

Draco felt it, the moment Potter seized control of himself—the end of his passive curiosity, the beginning of the offensive—his magic must have been boiling beneath the surface of his skin, and if Draco closed his eyes he might have imagined he was standing next to a flame, Fiendfyre grasped in Potter’s fist.

“Why did you kill your father, Malfoy?”

Potter’s non sequiturs were becoming familiar, stepping stones in conversation that Draco could never quite predict the outcome of. Nobody had ever asked Draco before, not outright. There was a part of him that had been waiting to explain himself, waiting to gloat. Of course it would be Potter who dared to demand an explanation, _of course_.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Draco asked in return, hoping for an easy out. But Potter remained still and silent, restrained and waiting. For a real answer. For a weak spot. Sometimes one was required to take a blow, to learn how one’s opponent intended to strike next. Draco knew this, but still he snapped at Potter with unexpected anger, the flow of words spilling out of him hot and fierce. “Because nobody else did, Potter, not even you. Because he had earned his death. Because he brought this family low; he grovelled—abject and _shameful_ —at the feet of a filthy madman who wasn’t even a Pureblood. Because I do a better job than he ever could. Because the land demanded it; the wards had borne every blow of shame and subservience and were ready to reject our blood. Because he deserved it. _And so did I_.”

Potter turned to him, face empty of censure. “Did you enjoy it? The way you enjoyed watching me?”

It was Draco’s turn to clench his teeth and offer up silence, and Potter didn’t seem to mind. He stepped toward Draco and pushed him backwards, towards the huge floor-to-ceiling windows facing out onto the falling dusk, until Draco’s back hit the stone window frame and he could feel the cool of the glass through his shirt.

“Did you, Malfoy?”

Draco curled his lip, and despite the bloom of heat in his belly that made him want to curse Potter, or press their bodies together—or both—his voice was level and calm. “Does it matter? It was necessary.”

Potter’s face was strangely shadowed, the glow of the chandelier behind him etching his outline in gold, and the dying sunset outside the windows before him casting a bloody red across his features. When he parted his mouth to speak, Draco almost expected to hear a growl.

“I think you did like it,” Potter said, and his voice was loud in the still air around them; it wasn’t an intimate whisper appropriate for dark secrets. Perhaps Potter meant for there to be no secrets here. “I think you like it best when _necessary_ means _doing what you want_.”

“Which of the two is this, Potter?”

Draco only felt the brief touch of Potter’s foot at the back of his knee before he found himself brought to his knees on the floor, a swift and simple move he had watched Potter utilise often in the arena of the Dog Fights. He hadn’t seen Potter thumb open his opponent’s mouths though, not like he was doing to Draco now. Draco lazily drew his eyes up Potter’s body, and held his gaze steadily as he brought his teeth down on the thumb pressing against his bottom lip. If he bit any harder, he’d draw blood, but still Potter’s face was impassive, watchful—so Draco eased off, and touched his tongue to the pad of Potter’s thumb instead. A provocation, not an apology, and Potter knew it too—his other hand grabbed at Draco’s hair and he tilted his head back, exposing Draco’s throat, opening his mouth.

“It’s been a while since I’ve even thought about doing what I want.” 

Draco bit down on the urge to crow that _he_ was the one who granted Potter this freedom, but only because the knowledge of it already hung heavy on the air between them; only because Potter was pushing him down further. He allowed it, allowed himself to be manoeuvred onto all fours, kneeling on the priceless Isfahan rug he had purchased last year—the delicately woven flowers writhing and curling beneath him, as tiny figures raced around the border; souls trapped by the magic of the weave, old enemies of previous owners.

“Hungry again, are you?” Draco asked.

Potter cast silently, and Draco’s clothes were gone—Vanished to who knew where. Goosebumps raced down his spine, along every limb; this room was kept cool to protect his collection, it had nothing to do with the way it felt for his body to be made a spectacle, displayed for Potter. Draco imagined being trapped under glass like this, an endless presentation for Potter’s viewing pleasure. Blood pooled low in his belly. 

Potter’s voice was low when he replied, and shockingly close to Draco’s skin. “Something like that.”

And then there was the hot touch of Potter’s mouth to the sensitive skin at the base of Draco’s spine. It was a simple kiss, a warning before he gripped at Draco’s cheeks, pulled him open, and licked hot and wet and dirty from his balls to his hole. Draco had been half hard since Potter had arrived, wondering if he would find himself here beneath him again, but the first touch of Potter’s tongue to the sensitive skin of his rim brought him to aching fullness. 

Ordinarily, Draco loved this. Loved the feeling of being serviced, of a partner so intoxicated with him that they would literally kiss his arse. He might even have sneered those exact words to Potter once upon a time; in hallowed stone corridors, with red and green ties around their necks. But Potter wasn’t kissing him; he was _feasting_ on Draco, licking into him with an unabashed vigour that had Draco panting into the tightly-woven silk under his cheek as his cock pulsed and dripped precome onto a rug that cost more than most people’s houses. Potter didn’t speak, he didn’t toy with Draco, he simply glutted himself on each twitch, and shiver, and barely bitten back moan he dragged from him. Draco had never yielded, he had never let himself slip like this—into this delirious suspension of self—he had never wanted to, never imagined anyone _could_ unshackle him from his self-restraint. 

Potter’s tongue was hot against him, the contrast of his breath and the cool air around Draco’s naked body enough to make his nerves sing. And then one blunt fingertip pressed into him; it was slick with Potter’s saliva but still Draco imagined he could feel every whorl of Potter’s fingerprint as it stroked inside of him and pressed meanly into his prostate. It would match the bruise-deep grip Potter still had on the muscle of Draco’s left arse cheek. Draco grit his teeth against a whining moan and held his hips still instead of writhing like he wanted to. Draco had fantasised about collaring Potter again, slipping that torque around his neck and taming the roiling magic that he could feel, now, brushing up against him, inside him. But this way was better. This way Potter thought _he_ was the one mastering Draco. Potter was wrong, of course—he was the one seeking Draco out, the one hungry for him; he was circling close to the shelter and warmth Draco had so carefully set out for him.

But Draco’s confidence in his own capacity to remain untangled was wavering in the face of Potter’s intensity. His own home had let Potter past wards that even the Dark Lord himself had found himself constrained by; his own body flexed under Potter’s tongue and knuckle. Orgasm threatened like a storm on the horizon, dark and rumbling in the seat of Draco’s hips, and part of him wanted to scramble away and hide from it. That part was stymied when Potter abruptly snatched his mouth and fingers away to flip Draco onto his back with a jerk of strong arms and shoulders. Potter had taken him from behind, last time, and that had been easier; Draco’s mind went blank at the sight of him above him now. 

Potter’s face was flushed, his mouth red and wet—and Draco knew the pale skin of his own arse and thighs would be too; Potter hadn’t shaved that morning, and his stubble was a dark shadow along his jaw. He tore off his t-shirt and unbuttoned his jeans to shove them down his thighs while Draco lay panting beneath him. No finesse, no elegance; but Draco couldn’t take his eyes off him, even as he grabbed at one of Draco’s legs and threw it over his shoulder—Potter’s cock was hard and heavy, darkly flushed with blood and obscene where it hung between their closely-pressed bodies. Draco’s pale skin looked better against the curve of Potter’s neck than that torque ever could. He let his other leg fall to the side, revealing and vulnerable. 

Potter wasn’t holding him down this time, so Draco’s hands were free to roam. He stroked down his own chest, featherlight and delicate, and thumbed at his nipples. He wasn’t the only one who was watching; Potter’s gaze followed the trail of Draco’s fingers, hungrily chasing the flush of sensation that bloomed across his pale chest. There was no mourning or guilt in his eyes as Draco traced each silver-sharp scar that Potter had left him with, only heat as Draco’s fingers slipped lower still. 

“Are you just going to watch? Forgotten how to use your equipment now I’ve stripped out whatever edge those potions gave you?” Draco muttered the spell beneath his breath, then pressed two slick fingers to his own hole. 

That provoked a curled lip and flash of white teeth—and for a moment Draco half expected to see those spectral wolves that prowled the ring before Potter had felled another competitor lurking around him. But all he saw was Potter, and all he felt was the strength of him as he hauled Draco close, and all he tasted was the dry rasp of air as he gasped desperately for breath. Because Potter held his cock with his free hand and angled it down into Draco, and the press of it alongside his own fingers, stretching his hole impossibly wide, shocked all sound and thought from him. There was no room for anything but Potter. 

Draco jerked his fingers away, and the relief of one less intrusion made the long, slow press of Potter’s hips feel like a balm on the Lumos-bright sparks of _too much_ still dancing up his spine. He sighed, and his breath shuddered out of him, and Potter was so deep inside him Draco wondered if he would be able to fill his lungs again or if he would have to wait until they were done with this—this contest of skin and sinew and the wild pump of blood. Potter leaned down, and his jeans brushed against the back of Draco’s thighs, and his weight pressed him down into the carpet. Draco was folded in half, caged in by Potter’s arms and hips, and pinned by his cock and his heavy stare.

“Those potions only dulled my senses, Malfoy, and even with them still in my blood I had you howling.” He rolled his hips, and he was deep. There was nowhere for Draco to go, no give anywhere but in his own body, in the breath punched out of him. Potter pressed one hand into the middle of Draco’s chest, firm and heavy on his sternum, and leaned down till their lips brushed with each thrust. “Are you pleased to have sharpened me up?”

“Yes.” Draco whispered, an admission half-offered up, half-torn from his unwilling grip. Yes he was pleased. _He_ was the one to drag Potter back to land after languishing in drowning violence for all those years. _He_ was the one to heal him and strip him back to his real self. _He_ was the one who had earned the mercurial trust of a wild strength that didn’t _need_ anyone else. _He_ was the one who had already wielded Potter like a well-honed blade. And he was the one Potter had come to, had taken to the floor, and driven into; like Draco was safe harbour for him, now that he was too sharp to fit comfortably in his old life. “ _Yes_ — _yes_ —” He might have carried on all night—each ‘yes’ a request, a demand, a plea—so he grabbed at Potter’s hand on his chest, dragged it upward, and sucked two of his fingers into his mouth. Suitably mute, Draco laved at them with his tongue, holding onto Potter’s wrist with both of his hands like some kind of anchor as his body rocked beneath his thrusts. 

Maybe it was his words, or maybe it was the soft wetness of his mouth, but Potter’s face transformed with fiery want. His fingers pressed down on Draco’s tongue, and he cursed as he drove into him with fierce snaps of his hips. Draco wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t look away from the spectacle of it, couldn’t help the desperate arch of his back as he used what pittance of leverage he had to meet Potter’s thrusts. A sudden jolt of heat ran through him at the notion of the two of them being watched, of being taken like this on the blood-stained sand of the Dog Fight arena, surrounded by the contorted faces of a hungry, howling crowd.

The storm of his pleasure rolled through Draco, a torrent of sensation—straining muscle, sweat-slick skin, the aching give of his hole around Potter’s heat and hardness. He knew Potter was close, too; the muscles of his stomach twitched with every brush against Draco’s cock, and his breath trembled against Draco’s face. Draco was coming undone, the surging rise of his body was inevitable now. But he was torn from his freefall into completion by Potter’s voice, rough and strained with arousal and exertion.

“I know what you’re doing.” 

If Draco hadn’t been on the edge of spectacular orgasm he might have questioned Potter’s apparent tendency to interrogate him mid-coitus. As it was, he struggled enough to speak at all, dragging Potter’s fingers from his mouth. They trailed saliva across his lips and down his chin, until Potter rested them in the hollow of Draco’s throat. “You do?”

Potter grinned, and it was so sharp Draco was surprised he couldn’t see blood on his teeth. “If we’re going to hurt them—” he paused, and slammed into Draco hard enough to make him gasp, then continued, his body never slowing its insistent onslaught.“If we’re going to hurt them, it has to be bad enough they can never recover. Do you understand?”

Draco stared at him, their eyes firmly fixed even as their bodies crashed together unrestrained and wild. _We_. Potter had said _we_. Internally, Draco howled with victory. He had never thought, never imagined it—but Potter _understood_. Draco nodded—it was all he could do—and then grabbed at Potter’s hair to drag him down. The kiss was sharp with teeth and curses, and the taste of salt-iron burst against Draco’s tongue before he swept it into Potter’s mouth. Maybe it was that, that tipped Draco over the edge, tearing open the storm front and leaving him to the mercy of his body as he shook and clenched around Potter; his gasps falling into Potter’s waiting mouth.

Potter didn’t slow, didn’t pause, just kissed hard at Draco’s slack mouth and rutted deep. It didn’t take long before his hips stilled and he threw his head back, the tendons of his neck straining as he shouted into the quiet of the Manor. Draco wanted to swallow it, the sound of Potter’s completion; he wanted to consume it and keep it inside him, to collect this part of the man and know he _owned_ it. Potter slumped down over him, propped up on one elbow, and grinned, and this time his teeth _were_ bloody—Draco tongued at the inside of his lip and found the split Potter’s biting kiss had left behind. It was tender, deliciously aching. Just like the place where Potter’s cock still rested.

Draco didn’t expect it; the way Potter’s eyes dropped to his mouth, the way he brushed a thumb against Draco’s bottom lip—softly. Potter’s words echoed in his head. _If we are going to hurt them._ It had been a very long time since Draco had been understood. A long time since anyone had agreed with him on what needed to be done. Potter might have different motivations, but he agreed on the method. He lifted this thumb from Draco’s mouth, and slipped the red-stained pad to his own lips.

“I’ll show you where I buried my father, tomorrow.” Draco whispered. He’d show Potter the trees he had planted along the path he had dragged the body. He’d show him the lake with a shore of smooth white pebbles, serene now, where he had gotten wet to the thigh on the night he did it. He’d show Potter that he understood exactly what it meant to strike with intention, to divert the path that was laid out before you by other people’s hands.

“Good,” Potter said, as he pulled out and let their mess drip onto the priceless and vengeful carpet beneath them, unknowing or uncaring of the magic curling against his knees. “I’d like that. You’ll have to tell me… how it happened.”

And Draco will tell him how Lucius had proposed a plan—to sweep Potter off the chessboard and drop him into a cage to be killed like a dog—and how he had screamed when Draco held him down under the water, his pale face distorted and wavering in the moonlight. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please note the tags before reading, I have endeavoured to be thorough and honest in my warnings: although there is no MCD in this fic, there are several scenes of graphic violence and murder. 
> 
> The Dog Fights are gladiatorial style fights to the death, and I don’t let my characters escape from the rules of the arena.
> 
> If you enjoyed this fic come and follow me on [Tumblr](https://shealwaysreads.tumblr.com) ❤️
> 
> \--
> 
> Remember to leave some love for the creator if you can! Come reblog this work and view others from this fest [HERE](https://hd-hurtfest.tumblr.com/) on the H/D Hurt!Fest tumblr page!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Few know what you are [Fanart]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28010568) by [MaesterChill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaesterChill/pseuds/MaesterChill)




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